Indefensible: Schools closing after winning state basketball titles

A wide variety of Georgia high schools have won state basketball championships.

The GIAA began state tournaments for its league in 1922 and the official Georgia High School Association championships started in 1926. (For reasons unknown the GHSA does not list the 1926-37 champions on its site.)

Of course, in nearly 100 years of tournaments, not all schools are still standing.

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Scenes from a dead town

Holmesville and Baxley, from the 1874 Augustus Mitchell’s Map of Georgia and Alabama, posted on Georgia Info.

Holmesville is not a town that rolls off the tip of the tongue. Nor it is a town where anyone says they are going.

Holmesville is not a town on any major maps. It has not been in nearly 150 years.

Located in Appling County, Holmesville probably never properly thrived.

A good area: Bonaire High, football and the rise of Warner Robins

Houston County is seemingly perpetually growing.

The United States census gives credence to that. Starting with the 1940 census, Houston County has grown in every count. The county had 110,765 people in 2000, a growth from 89,208 in 1990. In 2010, the number was 139,900. Currently, the figure is estimated at 152,122.

Banks County keeps ’em coming

Georgia’s mountain counties have always been a little different in attitude.

Dade County fashioned itself the “State of Dade” over its geographic divide with the rest of Georgia. The Cleveland Courier in White County carried a motto in the 1950s that it “covers the mountains like moonshine.”

The Banks County Journal carried on this proud tradition of being slightly subversive.