About Us

Chamber Board of Directors

President- Reece Turner

Vice President – Anna Douglas

Secretary – Debbie Spivey

Treasurer – Linda Bagley

LonAnn Sweat

Carmin Dowdy

Donna Taylor

Feral Wilcox

Jackie Ramsdell

Trey Lee

Background on Alma

Bacon County was named for U.S. Senator Augustus Octavius Bacon, who served four terms and was president pro tempore of the Senate in 1912. The 285-square-mile county was created from portions of Appling, Pierce, and Ware counties in 1914. Because Bacon was the 151st county, an amendment was needed to override a previous limit of 145 counties set by Georgia voters in 1904. The area, part of the wiregrass region, was first settled by creek Indians and then by pioneer families from the Carolinas who sought more affordable land. Naval stores and turpentine were the key industries. The County seat, Alma, was incorporated in 1906. The courthouse, built in 1919, still serves the residents and was placed on the national Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Two stories exist about the origin of Alma’s name. One, put forth in 1966 by Bernice McCullar in her book This Is Your Georgia and frequently repeated by local residents, is that each letter represents the first letter of four of Georgia’s early state capitals, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville, and Atlanta. However, another story, recorded by Kenneth Krakow in Georgia Place-names (1975), is that a Macon salesman traveling through the unnamed town, offered his wife’s name, Alma Sheridan. In addition to the courthouse, two other Bacon County buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Alma Depot and the Rabinowitz Building on West 11th Street. The depot, added to the register in 1983, is privately owned and used as a warehouse. Other buildings and places of interest include the Old Dixon Hotel and the Camp Ground Methodist Church, dating from the early 1800s.