Georgia

The Peach State

The last of the original 13 colonies, Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River. It has had 5 state capitals; Augusta, Savannah, Louisville, Milledgeville, and Atlanta. 

The colony was originally intended to be settled by the “worthy poor” from London prisons, who would be used as indentured laborers. Georgia has the oldest state park and the oldest African-American church in the US. 

It was the first state to lower the voting age to 18, and the first to allow women to earn a college degree. The invention of the cotton gin in 1761 radically changed the slave-based economy of Georgia, as the global demand for cotton quickly grew.