[5][6] The county was developed for cotton plantations, the major commodity crop, and the rural area had a high proportion of enslaved African-American workers.

The Central of Georgia Railway arrived in Cuthbert in the 1850s, stimulating trade and growth, and providing a means of getting cotton and other crops to market.

The city has notable sites such as a Confederate Army cemetery, historical houses built in the 1800s, and the Fletcher Henderson home.

In 2007 an announcement was made of a museum to be dedicated to late resident Lena Baker and issues of racial justice.

Baker was an African-American maid who was convicted of capital murder in 1945 in the death of a white man; she was the only woman in Georgia to be executed by electric chair.