Valdosta had been a haven during the Civil War.
Founded in 1859-60, little more than a year prior to the start of the war, Valdosta was a town created on the move.
The town was created to be closer to a railroad passing through Lowndes County, a rail- road that refused to move four miles away to Troupville, what was then the county seat of Lowndes.
So, Troupville residents moved to the railroad tracks and incorporated the town of Valdosta to greet the trains.
During the war, Valdosta was considered a safe distance from the bloody battles and carnage as the Union Army invaded the South.
Families moved to Valdosta looking for a safe place during the war.
After the war, many of the newer Valdosta residents moved back to their original towns. Others stayed, often at the physical and eloquent insistence of the man who created the news- paper that would become The Valdosta Daily Times.
One-hundred-fifty years ago, March 20, 1867, The South Geor- gia Times was founded.
In the 1870s, the newspaper became The Valdosta Times.
Then, Valdosta was a town of impermanence and wood. Downtown buildings were made of wood.
The first courthouse was wood.
Churches were wood.
A conflagration destroyed the First Baptist Church and threatened to take the rest of Valdosta with it.
By the early 1900s, downtown buildings were converting to the permanence of brick and stone.
What people now refer to as the historical Lowndes County Courthouse was a new building in 1905. A murder trial caught the attention of the state, region and nation. It brought hundreds of people to town as it was tried in the new courthouse.
Responding to interest in the trial, The Valdosta Times be- came a daily publication, changing its name for the first time on Oct. 16, 1905, to The Valdosta Daily Times.
Daily was not seven days a week then. At times, the paper reverted to The Valdosta Times, curtailing the number of days it printed on several occasions through the decades.
The newspaper has been a part of the community for al- most as long as there has been a Valdosta. One of the oldest institutions in Valdosta.
A namesake of the city. A promise then and now of telling the stories of a city and its neighbors.
BY DEAN POLING
