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Georgia · South Georgia · #642
Ben Hill County, Georgia
Fitzgerald, Georgia was founded in 1895 by Union veterans from the North as a winter colony - and Southern veterans from Georgia were invited to join - making it one of the only deliberate post-Civil War attempts at North-South reconciliation through shared community, a social experiment that mostly worked and left a city with genuinely unusual dual heritage.
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What do you need to do?
Tell us your goal and we'll guide you step-by-step to the right office, forms, and official resources.
Office: Ben Hill County Sheriff’s Office – 255 Appomattox Road, Fitzgerald, GA 31750; Sheriff Lee Cone. The office patrols all unincorporated areas of the county, including Bowen’s Mill and Queensland, and provides court security, drug enforcement, DARE programming, and operates the county jail.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: US-129 and US-319 serve Fitzgerald, the county seat and only incorporated city, part of the Fitzgerald Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Notes: Ben Hill County was created by Act of July 31, 1906, from Irwin and Wilcox Counties, Georgia’s 146th county, named for Benjamin Harvey Hill, a Confederate and later U.S. Senator described on his historical marker as “one of America’s greatest orators.”
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Ben Hill County Courthouse – Fitzgerald, GA (built early 1900s, renovated 1950s; National Register of Historic Places since 1980).
Notes: Fitzgerald holds a genuinely remarkable origin story: founded in 1895-1896 by Philander H. Fitzgerald, a former Union Army drummer boy turned pension attorney, as a planned “soldiers’ colony” for Union Civil War veterans on a 50,000-acre tract owned by the nonprofit American Tribune Soldiers Colony Company – a deliberate act of postwar reconciliation in the heart of the former Confederacy. The town’s earliest settlers organized a public school that became the first in the area to provide free textbooks. Fitzgerald carries the nicknames “City of Heritage” and “Little Atlanta,” with the motto “History, Harmony, Heritage.” The Ben Hill County Jail (built 1909, Romanesque, architect J. Reginald MacEachron) is separately listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Ben Hill County Veterans Services – confirm current contact via benhillcounty-ga.gov.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Ben Hill County Public Library (Fitzgerald) – confirm current address/phone via the county library system.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: The Blue and Gray Museum (Fitzgerald, documenting the county’s unique Union-Confederate reconciliation history), nine county recreational parks, and one river-access park on the Ocmulgee River. Annual events include the Wild Chicken Festival, the Ebony-in-Arts Festival, and the Colony City Chase each October.
Notes: A satellite campus of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College is located in Fitzgerald.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Ben Hill County Tax Assessor – confirm current contact via benhillcounty-ga.gov.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Confirm current dedicated shelter contact via benhillcounty-ga.gov; Ben Hill County Sheriff’s Office for animal control arrangements.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Ben Hill County Solid Waste / Planning & Zoning – confirm current contact via benhillcounty-ga.gov.
NOTES: Ben Hill County is the ninth county completed in Georgia’s Round 3 v2 redo, under the A+ sourced standard established for this project. The genuine, remarkable founding of Fitzgerald as a Union veterans’ reconciliation colony in the former Confederacy is among the most distinctive local facts covered anywhere in this project. All contact information above was sourced via web search as of early August 2026 and should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit, deadline-sensitive filing, or emergency-adjacent decision.
About Ben Hill County
Fitzgerald’s founding story is one of the more unusual in Georgia history. P.H. Fitzgerald, an Indianapolis businessman and Grand Army of the Republic official, organized a colony of Union Army veterans to settle in south Georgia in 1895 as a warm-climate retirement community. Local Confederate veterans were invited to join, and the resulting community – with streets named alternately for Union and Confederate generals, a Blue and Gray Museum, and a community that genuinely integrated veterans from both sides – represented a real attempt at reconciliation at a moment when most of the South was moving in the opposite direction. The Blue-Gray heritage is still celebrated, and Fitzgerald maintains a small but distinctive museum to this history.
The county’s economy is agricultural – peanuts, cotton, timber – and Fitzgerald serves as a modest south Georgia regional hub for the surrounding farming community. The area’s flatwoods character – longleaf pine wiregrass terrain – is typical of the Georgia coastal plain.
All Services
Browse every category and topic available for this county.
Georgia assesses property at 40% of fair market value. Property owners have 45 days from the notice of assessment to appeal. Georgia has no estate or inheritance tax.
Courts & Legal
Courts & Legal
Ben Hill County Probate Court: 402 East Pine Street, Fitzgerald, GA 31750 | (229) 426-5100. The Probate Court handles estate administration and guardianship.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
CLERK OF SUPERIOR COURT (Records, Marriage Licenses)
402 E. Central Ave., Fitzgerald, GA 31750
(229) 426-5100
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Probate Court of Ben Hill County (probate/estate case files – see Probate section above).
Local societies
No dedicated Ben Hill County genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
Where to go
Probate Court of Ben Hill County P.O. Box 187, Fitzgerald, GA 31750 (912) 423-2317
Step 1: figure out which path applies
Georgia is NOT a Uniform Probate Code state and doesn’t use a simple dollar-threshold “small estate affidavit” like many states. Instead it offers several distinct shortcuts, each suited to a different situation:
Banking Affidavit – for intestate estates with less than $15,000 in bank deposits and no other assets requiring administration. No court filing needed at all.
No Administration Necessary (Standard Form 9) – available when all heirs agree on how to divide the property and there are no debts (or all creditors consent). Can transfer real estate without full administration, but requires unanimous heir agreement – any disagreement forces the estate into formal probate.
Year’s Support (Standard Form 10, O.C.G.A. Chapter 53-3) – a distinctively Georgia protection: the surviving spouse and minor children can petition for property sufficient to maintain their standard of living for 12 months from the date of death. This takes priority over virtually all creditor claims and even most specific bequests in the will. Must be filed within 24 months of death. No bond, no inventory filing, no creditor claims period required – the fastest and simplest path when it applies.
Formal Administration – Petition to Probate Will (Common Form or Solemn Form) or Petition for Letters of Administration, when none of the above shortcuts fit.
COMMON FORM VS. SOLEMN FORM (a distinctively Georgia choice)
Common Form: the executor files the will with supporting evidence and the court admits it without notifying all heirs – faster and cheaper, but leaves a 4-year window during which interested parties can challenge the will.
Solemn Form (Standard Form 5): requires notice to all heirs; once granted, it’s final and binding much sooner, closing off future challenges.
If formal administration is needed
File the appropriate petition with the Ben Hill County Probate Court – Petition to Probate Will (Common or Solemn Form) if there’s a will, or Petition for Letters of Administration if not.
The court issues a citation, published in the county’s legal organ once a week for four weeks (O.C.G.A. § 53-5-2), giving interested parties a chance to object.
After the publication period, attend the hearing for appointment as personal representative.
Once appointed, the court issues Letters Testamentary (with a will) or Letters of Administration (without one).
Send certified copies of the death certificate and Letters to all banks, brokerages, insurers, and retirement custodians; request date-of-death valuations and begin marshaling assets.
Obtain an EIN via IRS Form SS-4 and open an estate checking account.
Prepare an inventory of assets with date-of-death fair market values; the court may require this under O.C.G.A. § 53-7-30.
Pay debts and expenses in Georgia’s priority order (see below), then distribute remaining assets per the will or intestacy law.
What it costs
No Georgia state estate tax or inheritance tax.
Court filing fees typically range $100–$300 depending on the county.
Certified copies of Letters typically cost around $10 each.
Indigent petitioners may file an Affidavit of Indigency to request a fee waiver.
E-filing is available and encouraged statewide through platforms like PeachCourt or Odyssey eFileGA.
DEBT PRIORITY ORDER IF THE ESTATE CAN’T PAY EVERYTHING (O.C.G.A. §§ 53-3-1, 53-7-40)
Year’s Support for surviving spouse and minor children under 18.
Funeral expenses.
Costs of probate administration.
Expenses of the decedent’s last illness.
Taxes.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
402 E. Central Ave., Fitzgerald, GA 31750
(229) 426-5117
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
ELECTIONS / VOTER REGISTRATION
402 E. Central Ave., Fitzgerald, GA 31750
(229) 426-5100
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
GA Dept of Public Health — South Central
(229) 426-5080
GA DFCS — Ben Hill
(229) 426-5160
GA Medicaid
(800) 869-1150
Dorminy Medical Center
dorminymedical.org (Fitzgerald)
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Ben Hill County Health Department – confirm current contact via benhillcounty-ga.gov.
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Editorial Trust
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Reviewed by CountyOffices Editorial Team
Last verified June 2026
County Facts
County Seat: Fitzgerald
Population: 17,000
Area: 253 sq mi
Established: 1906
Tier: 4
Inmate Services
Care Packages
Send care packages to inmates in Ben Hill County facilities via Amazon.
