Tift purchased about 65,000 acres of virgin pine timberland there in the Wiregrass Region of South Georgia, and established a sawmill and a village for his workers.

Tift eventually expanded into turpentine and barrel-making operations, and turned his barren timberlands into farms for cotton, corn, livestock, fruit, tobacco, pecans and sweet potatoes.

When the Georgia Southern and Florida Railway intersected the Brunswick and Western Railroad near Tift's mill in 1888, the settlement was connected to Atlanta and became a boom town.

These included fruit growing, groceries and general merchandise, cottonseed oil, lumber, brick and stone, and several railroads, all essential for the development of a region.

Tift's civic commitment was most evident in his donation of lands for churches (Methodist, Baptist, and Episcopal) and Fulwood Park, and in his decades of service as a city councilman and mayor.