Macon360.com – your source for everything around Macon.The city planners of Macon envisioned “a city within a park” and went about creating a city of spacious streets and parks. They also designated 250 acres for Central City Park and citizens were required by ordinances to plant shade trees in their front yards. The city thrived due to its location on the Ocmulgee River and cotton became the mainstay of Macon’s early economy. Cotton boats, stage coaches, and later, in 1843, a railroad all brought economic prosperity to Macon. In 1836, Wesleyan College, the oldest women’s college in the world, was founded in Macon. During the American Civil War, Macon served as the official arsenal of the Confederacy and Macon City Hall, which would serve as the temporary state capitol in 1864, was converted to use as a hospital for the wounded. However, Macon was spared by General William Tecumseh Sherman on his march to the sea. The nearby state capital of Milledgeville had been sacked and Maconites prepared for an attack. But General Sherman feared that Confederate forces were preparing a unified attack of their own and therefore bypassed Macon. Throughout the era of Reconstruction and into the twentieth century, Macon grew into a prospering town in Middle Georgia, and began to serve as a transportation hub for the entire state.
Macon natives have had a great influence upon music of the United States. The kazoo was invented in the city during the 1840s. Macon has been the birthplace or hometown to such musicians as The Allman Brothers Band, Mark Heard, Lucille Hegamin, Lena Horne, Otis Redding, and Little Richard, as well as more recent names like violinist Robert McDuffie, rapper Young Jeezy, and country artist Jason Aldean. RapperJody Breeze (1/4 of the hip-hop group Boyz N Da Hood, currently signed to P. Diddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment) was discovered in Macon at a car show. Capricorn Records, run by Macon native Phil Walden, made the city a hub for Southern rock music in the 1970s.
Partly as a result of this musical heritage, Macon is also the home of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Musicians from around the state are enshrined at the hall for their contributions, and the building features a museum showcasing Georgia’s music history.
Today, the city remains the cultural hub of Middle Georgia, hosting the Macon Symphony Orchestra, which performs at the historic Grand Opera House in downtown Macon, as well as a youth symphony, the Middle Georgia Concert Band, and numerous other groups, many associated with the local universities.
