The area was developed for large cotton plantations, based on enslaved African-American field workers.

Circa 1826, Hamilton Sharpe built a store made of logs; he opened a post office in 1828.

On 16 May 1918, Smith was shot and killed by Sidney Johnson, a black worker whom he had severely beaten.

[6] During the ensuing manhunt in Brooks and Lowndes counties, white mobs captured at least 12 blacks and lynched them during the next few days.

All but one were men; the victims included 19-year-old Mary Turner, who had denounced the lynching of her husband, and her eight-month-old fetus, cut from her body and also murdered at the site, on the west bank of the Little River.

A group of local women organized to gain installation of electric lights in August 1924.