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For seventy years in the early 1800s, Mt Vernon was little more than an old wood courthouse. The surrounding pine woods were just as little changed over the decades and were just as closed to the outside world. However the years from 1886 to 1892 brought more explosive growth of all types to the area than the entire previous century and more than it would know for many years afterwards. The turpentine and timber industry expanded at the same time that farmer's clubs were formed to teach better uses of the land for agriculture. Mt Vernon became a real town, and was incorporated. The town even tried to acquire a college. Railroads arrived and in their wake whole new towns such as Vidalia and Ailey sprang up in the woods. Mt Vernon triumphed and grew but only by fighting to keep from being abolished by being bypassed by the railroad.
Montgomery County continued to grow after 1892, although that growth was never again as explosive as before. The prosperity of the county generally continued until World War I. The War brought about new problems. The War depressed the cotton market and coincidentally the boll weevil arrived during the war years. With the increase in population and more real towns, there were movements to divide old Montgomery into new counties. Toombs, Treutlen, and Wheeler counties were eventually formed, and Mt Vernon had to fend off movements that were trying to have the county seat moved to Vidalia or Ailey.
Montgomery County finally received a new court house in 1907, to replace the wood building that had been in use since 1817, however even building a new courthouse was more a reaction to attempts to carve up the county than public concern over the old building's inadequacies. Despite the changes in the county's geography, Montgomery County somehow survived and Mt Vernon remained the county seat.
The story of this era is documented in the county's newspaper The Montgomery Monitor, although a no complete run of this newspaper is known to survive.
Reprints from:
History of Montgomery County Georgia to 1918
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