Macon, Georgia facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Macon
Consolidated city-county
Macon–Bibb County
Aerial photograph of Macon Bibb County Courthouse Mercer University Downtown Macon The Allman Brothers Band Museum
Seal
Location within Bibb County
Macon Location in Georgia (U.S. state) Show map of Georgia (U.S. state) Macon Location in the United States Show map of the United States
Country	United States
State	Georgia
County	Bibb
Settled around Fort Benjamin Hawkins	1809
Area
• Consolidated city-county	254.90 sq mi (660.19 km2)
• Land	249.38 sq mi (645.89 km2)
• Water	5.52 sq mi (14.30 km2)
Elevation	381 ft (116 m)
Population  (2020)
• Consolidated city-county	157,346
• Rank	164th in the United States 4th in Georgia
• Density	630.95/sq mi (243.61/km2)
• Metro	233,802 (197th)
Time zone	UTC−5 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
ZIP Codes	31200–31299
Area code(s)	478
FIPS code	13-49000
GNIS feature ID	0332301
Website	maconbibb.us

Macon (/ˈmeɪkən/ MAY-kən), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in Georgia, United States. Situated near the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is 85 miles (137 km) southeast of Atlanta and near the state's geographic center—hence its nickname "The Heart of Georgia".

Macon's population was 157,346 in the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Macon metropolitan statistical area, which had 234,802 people in 2020. It also is the largest city in the Macon–Warner Robins Combined Statistical Area (CSA), which had approximately 420,693 residents in 2017 and abuts the Atlanta metropolitan area to the northwest.

Voters approved the consolidation of the City of Macon and Bibb County governments in a 2012 referendum. Macon became the state's fourth-largest city (after Augusta) when the merger became official on January 1, 2014.

Macon is served by three interstate highways: I-16 (connecting to Savannah and coastal Georgia), I-75 (connecting to Atlanta to the north and Valdosta to the south), and I-475 (a city bypass highway). The area has two small general aviation airports, Middle Georgia Regional Airport and Herbert Smart Downtown Airport. Residents traveling to and from the area mainly use the large commercial airport in Atlanta, approximately 80 miles to the northwest.

The city has several institutions of higher education and numerous museums and tourism sites.

History

Macon lies on the site of the Ocmulgee Old Fields, where the historic Creek Indians lived in the 18th century. Their prehistoric predecessors, the Mississippian culture, built a powerful chiefdom (950–1100 AD) based on an agricultural village and constructed earthwork mounds for ceremonial, burial and religious purposes. The areas along the rivers in the Southeast had been inhabited by varying cultures of indigenous peoples for 13,000 years before Europeans arrived.

Macon developed at the site of Fort Benjamin Hawkins, built from 1806–1809 at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River to protect the new frontier and establish a trading post with Native Americans. The fort was named in honor of Benjamin Hawkins, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southeast territory south of the Ohio River for more than two decades. He lived among the Creek and had a Creek wife. This was the most inland point of navigation on the river from the Low Country. President Thomas Jefferson forced the Creek to cede their lands east of the Ocmulgee River and ordered the fort built. (Archeological excavations in the 21st century found evidence of two separate fortifications.)

Fort Hawkins guarded the Lower Creek Pathway, an extensive and well-traveled American Indian network later improved by the United States as the Federal Road from Washington, DC to the ports of Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana. A gathering point of the Creek and American cultures for trading, it was also a center of state militia and federal troops. The fort served as a major military distribution point during the War of 1812 against Great Britain and also during the Creek War of 1813. Afterward, the fort was used as a trading post for several years and was garrisoned until 1821. It was decommissioned about 1828 and later burned to the ground. A replica of the southeast blockhouse was built in 1938 and stands today on a hill in east Macon. Part of the fort site is occupied by the Fort Hawkins Grammar School. In the twenty-first century, archeological excavations have revealed more of the fort's importance, and stimulated planning for additional reconstruction of this major historical site.

As many settlers had already begun to move into the area, they renamed Fort Hawkins "Newtown." After the organization of Bibb County in 1822, the city was chartered as the county seat in 1823 and officially named Macon. This was in honor of the North Carolina statesman Nathaniel Macon, because many of the early settlers hailed from North Carolina. The city planners envisioned "a city within a park" and created a city of spacious streets and parks. They designated 250 acres (1.0 km²) for Central City Park, and passed ordinances requiring residents to plant shade trees in their front yards.

The city thrived due to its location on the Ocmulgee River, which enabled shipping to markets; cotton became the mainstay of Macon's early economy, based on the enslaved labor of Africans. Macon was in the Black Belt of Georgia, where cotton was the chief commodity crop. Cotton steamboats, stage coaches, and later, in 1843, a railroad increased marketing opportunities and contributed to the economic prosperity to Macon. In 1836, the Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church founded Wesleyan College in Macon; it was the first college in the United States chartered to grant degrees to women. In 1855 a referendum was held to determine a capital city for Georgia. Macon came in last with 3,802 votes.

During the American Civil War, Macon served as the official arsenal of the Confederacy. Camp Oglethorpe, in Macon, was used first as a prison for captured Union officers and enlisted men. Later it held officers only, up to 2,300 at one time. The camp was evacuated in 1864.

Macon City Hall, which served as the temporary state capitol in 1864, was converted to use as a hospital for the wounded. The Union General William Tecumseh Sherman spared Macon on his march to the sea. His troops had sacked the nearby state capital of Milledgeville, and Maconites prepared for an attack. Sherman did not bother to go through Macon.

The Macon Telegraph wrote that, of the 23 companies which the city had furnished the Confederacy, only enough men survived and were fit for duty to fill five companies by the end of the war. The human toll was very high.

The city was taken by Union forces at the end of the war during Wilson's Raid on April 20, 1865.

Gradually into the twentieth century, Macon grew into a prospering town in Middle Georgia. It began to serve as a transportation hub for the entire state. In 1895, the New York Times dubbed Macon "The Central City," in reference to the city's emergence as a hub for railroad transportation and textile factories. Terminal Station was built in 1916.

In 1994 Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall in Florida dumping 24 inches (61 cm) of rain, which resulted in major flooding in Georgia. Macon was one of the cities to suffer the worst flooding.

On May 11, 2008, an EF2 tornado touched down near Lizella. The tornado then tracked northeast to the south shore of Lake Tobesofkee then continued into Macon and lifted near Dry Branch near the Twiggs County line. The tornado did not produce a continuous path, but did produce sporadic areas of major damage. Widespread straight-line wind damage was also produced along and south of the track of the tornado. The most significant damage was in the city of Macon especially along Eisenhower Parkway and Pio Nono Avenue where 2 businesses were destroyed and several others sustaining heavy damage. Middle Georgia State College was also hit by the tornado, snapping or uprooting 50 percent or more of the trees and doing significant damage to several buildings on campus with the gymnasium sustaining the worst damage. This tornado varied in intensity from EF0 to EF2 with the EF2 damage and winds up to 130 miles per hour (210 km/h) occurring near the intersection of Eisenhower Parkway and Pio Nono Avenue. Total path length was 18 miles (29 km) with a path width of 100 yards (91 m).

In 2012, voters in Macon and Bibb County approved a new consolidated government between the city and county, making the city's new boundary lines the same as the county's and deannexing a small portion of the city that once lay in Jones County.

Consolidation

On July 31, 2012, voters in Macon (57.8 percent approval) and Bibb County (56.7 percent approval) passed a referendum to merge the governments of the city of Macon and most of unincorporated Bibb County, based on the authorization of House Bill 1171, passed by the Georgia General Assembly earlier in the year; four previous consolidation attempts (in 1933, 1960, 1972, and 1976) had failed.

Under the consolidation, the governments of Macon and Bibb County were replaced with a single mayor and a nine-member countywide commission elected to office by county districts. A portion of Macon that extends into nearby Jones County was deincorporated from Macon. Robert Reichert is the first mayor of Macon-Bibb after the election in September 2013 and a runoff with C. Jack Ellis in October.

Suburban flight and urban decay

Like many major industrial cities in the midwest and northeast, the city of Macon has suffered from urban decay, dilapidated bungalows and other old houses, high crime rates, air pollution from factories and urban blight which has caused flight from the city core to the more suburban portions of Bibb County and to more suburban areas like Houston County, just south of the city. This played a major role in the consolidation effort to combat the issues in a more unified manner. This has been more of an issue for Macon than Georgia's other 2nd-tier cities.

Geography

The Ocmulgee River is the major river that runs through the city. Macon is one of Georgia's three Fall Line Cities, along with Augusta and Columbus. The Fall Line is where the hilly lands of the Piedmont plateau meet the flat terrain of the coastal plain. As such, Macon has a varied landscape of rolling hills on the north side and flat plains on the south. The fall line, where the altitude drops noticeably, causes rivers in the area to flow rapidly toward the ocean. In the past, Macon and other Fall Line cities had many textile mills powered by the rivers.

Macon is located at 32°50′05″N 83°39′06″W / 32.834839°N 83.651672°W / 32.834839; -83.651672 (32.834839, −83.651672).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 56.3 square miles (146 km²), of which, 55.8 square miles (145 km²) of it is land and 0.5 square miles (1.3 km²) of it (0.82%) is water.

Macon is approximately 330 feet (100 m) above sea level.

Climate

Macon has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa). The normal monthly mean temperature ranges from 46.3 °F (7.9 °C) in January to 81.8 °F (27.7 °C) in July. On average, there are 4.8 days with 100 °F (38 °C)+ highs, 83 days with 90 °F (32 °C)+ highs, and 43 days with a low at or below freezing; the average window for freezing temperatures is November 7 thru March 22, allowing a growing season of 228 days. The city has an average annual precipitation of 45.7 inches (1,160 mm). Snow is occasional, with about half of the winters receiving trace amounts or no snowfall, averaging 0.7 inches (1.8 cm); the snowiest winter is 1972−73 with 16.5 in (42 cm).

Surrounding cities and towns

Demographics

Historical population
Census	Pop.		%±
1840	3,297		—
1850	5,720		73.5%
1860	8,247		44.2%
1870	10,810		31.1%
1880	12,749		17.9%
1890	22,746		78.4%
1900	23,272		2.3%
1910	40,665		74.7%
1920	52,995		30.3%
1930	53,829		1.6%
1940	57,865		7.5%
1950	70,252		21.4%
1960	69,764		−0.7%
1970	122,423		75.5%
1980	116,896		−4.5%
1990	106,612		−8.8%
2000	97,255		−8.8%
2010	91,351		−6.1%
2020	157,346		72.2%
U.S. Decennial Census 1850-1870 1870-1880 1890-1910 1920-1930 1930-1940 1940-1950 1960-1980 1980-2000 2010 2020

Macon is the largest principal city in the Macon-Warner Robins-Fort Valley CSA, a combined statistical area that includes the Macon metropolitan area (Bibb, Crawford, Jones, Monroe, and Twiggs counties) and the Warner Robins metropolitan area (Houston, Peach, and Pulaski counties) with a combined population of 411,898 in the 2010 census.

Macon-Bibb County, Georgia – Racial and ethnic composition
Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.

Race / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)	Pop 2000	Pop 2010	Pop 2020	% 2000	% 2010	% 2020
White alone (NH)	34,050	25,296	56,787	35.01%	27.69%	36.09%
Black or African American alone (NH)	60,503	61,768	85,234	62.21%	67.62%	54.17%
Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)	177	146	281	0.18%	0.16%	0.18%
Asian alone (NH)	608	683	3,209	0.63%	0.75%	2.04%
Pacific Islander alone (NH)	27	28	42	0.03%	0.03%	0.03%
Other race alone (NH)	60	97	602	0.06%	0.11%	0.38%
Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)	664	1,069	4,454	0.68%	1.17%	2.83%
Hispanic or Latino (any race)	1,166	2,264	6,737	1.20%	2.48%	4.28%
Total	97,255	91,351	157,346	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%

As of the official 2010 U.S. census, the population of Macon was 91,351. In the last official census, in 2000, there were 97,255 people, 38,444 households, and 24,219 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,742.8 inhabitants per square mile (672.9/km²). There were 44,341 housing units at an average density of 794.6 per square mile (306.8/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 67.94% African American, 28.56% White, 0.02% Native American, 0.65% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.46% from other races, and 0.77% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 2.48% of the population. By the 2020 census, its population increased to 157,346.

There were 38,444 households, out of which 30.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 33.0% were married couples living together, 25.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.0% were non-families. 31.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 3.08.

In the city, the population was spread out, with 26.9% under the age of 18, 11.3% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 20.0% from 45 to 64, and 14.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 79.7 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 72.8 males.

Economy

The aerospace, advanced manufacturing, food processing, healthcare, professional services, and warehouse and distribution industries drive the economy in Macon-Bibb County. Long-standing large private employers include Mercer University, GEICO's Southeast Corporate Headquarters, YKK USA, and Norfolk Southern Railway's Brosnan Yard.

The decline of the textile industry in the South, along with the shuttering of other large manufacturing operations, such as the closing of the Brown and Williamson plant in 2006, caused a decline in the city's economy in the 2000s. In recent years, the city has successfully landed numerous new employers to diversify the economy, such as Irving Consumer Products and Kuhmo Tire manufacturing plants, as well as multiple aerospace employers at the Middle Georgia Regional Airport, including an Embraer aircraft maintenance facility.

The health care and social assistance sector is the largest industry in Macon by number of employees, with the Atrium Health Navicent and Piedmont Healthcare Macon hospital systems, two of the city's largest employers, making Macon the healthcare hub for the Middle and South Georgia regions.

Personal income

The 2010 Census listed Macon's median household income as $28,366, below the state average of $49,347. The median family income was $37,268. Full-time working males had a median income of $34,163, higher than the $28,082 for females. The city's per capita income was $17,010. About 24.1% of families and 30.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 43.6% of those under age 18 and 18.4% of those over 65.

Retail

Malls include The Shoppes at River Crossing, Macon Mall, and Eisenhower Crossing. Traditional shopping centers are in the downtown area and Ingleside Village.

Military

Macon is the headquarters of the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Georgia Army National Guard.

The largest single-site industrial complex in Georgia, Robins Air Force Base, is 10 miles south of Macon on Highway 247, just east of Warner Robins.

Arts and culture

Musical heritage

Macon is the birthplace or hometown of musicians Emmett Miller, The Allman Brothers Band, Randy Crawford, Mark Heard, Lucille Hegamin, Otis Redding, Little Richard, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry of R.E.M., as well as more recent names like violinist Robert McDuffie and country artist Jason Aldean. September Hase, an alternative rock band, was discovered in Macon. Capricorn Records, run by Macon natives Phil Walden and briefly Alan Walden, made the city a hub for Southern rock music in the late 1960s and 1970s.

The Macon Symphony Orchestra performs at the Grand Opera House in downtown Macon, as well as a youth symphony, and the Middle Georgia Concert Band.

Festivals

• International Cherry Blossom Festival - a 10-day celebration held every mid-March in Macon.
• The Mulberry Street Festival - an arts and crafts festival held downtown the last weekend of March.
• The Juneteenth Freedom Festival - An annual June performing arts and educational celebration of the end of American slavery in 1865, celebrating black freedom and heritage both ancient and contemporary.
• Pan African Festival - An annual celebration of the African diaspora and culture, held in April
• Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration - A celebration of the original residents of the land where Macon now sits, this festival is held every third weekend in September at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. Representatives from the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, and other nations come to share stories, exhibit Native art, and perform traditional songs and dance.
• Skydog is a music festival celebrating the birthday, life, and music of Skydog (Duane Allman) held in November.
• The Georgia Music Hall of Fame hosts Georgia Music Week in September.
• Macon's annual Bragg Jam festival features an Art and Kids' Festival along the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail and a nighttime Pub Crawl.
• Macon Film Festival - an annual celebration of independent films, held the third weekend in July

Points of interest

Historical sites

• Terminal Station, a railroad station built in 1916, is located on 5th St. at the end of Cherry St. Its architect was Alfred Fellheimer, prominent for his 1903 design of Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
• Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park is located near downtown Macon. It preserves some of Georgia's largest ancient earthwork mounds built by the Mississippian culture a millennium ago, c. 950–1150. It was sacred to the historic Muscogee (Creek Nation) as well. Archeological artifacts reveal 13,000 years of human habitation at the site. The park features a spiral mound, funeral mound, temple mounds, burial mounds, and a reconstructed earth lodge. It is the first Traditional Cultural Property designated by the National Park Service east of the Mississippi River.
• Fort Benjamin Hawkins, a major military outpost (1806-1821), was a command headquarters for the U.S. Army and Georgia militia on the boundary between U.S.-held and Native land, as well as a trading post or factory for the Creek Nation. It was a supply depot during U.S. campaigns of the War of 1812 and the Creek and Seminole Wars.
• Cannonball House, a historic home on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Luther Williams Field
• Old City Cemetery, one of Macon's oldest cemeteries
• Rose Hill Cemetery, a cemetery listed on the National Register of Historic Places
• Sidney Lanier Cottage, the poet's historic home.
• Temple Beth Israel, a domed Neoclassical built in 1902 to house Macon's Jewish congregation, founded in 1859.
• Wesleyan College, the first chartered women's college in the world

Museums

• The Allman Brothers Band Museum - the "Big House" used by the Allman Brothers Band in the early 1970s, now a museum of Allman Brothers history and artifacts
• The Georgia Children's Museum - interactive education, located in the downtown Museum District
• Georgia Sports Hall of Fame
• The Little Richard House and Museum - a museum of Little Richard's history and artifacts
• Museum of Arts and Sciences and Planetarium
• Tubman Museum of African American Art, History, and Culture - the largest African American museum in the Southeast

Community

• City Hall, Georgia's capital for part of the Civil War

• Douglass Theatre, named for its founder Charles Henry Douglass. An entrepreneur from a prominent black family, he was an established theatre developer well versed in the vaudeville and entertainment business. The theatre has undergone modern renovations and hosts numerous theatrical events.
• The Grand Opera House, where the Macon Symphony Orchestra performs
• Hay House - also known as the "Johnston-Felton-Hay House," it has been referred to as the "Palace of the South"
• City Auditorium, the world's largest true copper dome
• Macon Coliseum
• Macon Little Theatre, established in 1934, is the area's oldest community theatre, producing seven plays/musicals per season
• Waddell Barnes Botanical Gardens
• Theatre Macon, in the old Ritz Theatre; they perform around nine shows a year

Sports

Macon is home to the Mercer Bears, with NCAA Division I teams in soccer (men's and women's), football, baseball, basketball (men's and women's), tennis, and lacrosse. Central Georgia Technical College competes in men's and women's basketball. Wesleyan College, a women's school, has basketball, soccer, cross country, tennis, softball, and volleyball teams.

Club	Sport	League	Venue
Macon Bacon	Baseball	Coastal Plain League	Luther Williams Field
Macon Mayhem	Ice hockey	SPHL	Macon Coliseum

Former teams

Club	Sport	League	Venue	Active
Macon State College Blue Storm	Various	NCCAA	Various	2009–2013
Macon Central City/Hornets	Baseball	Southern League	Central City Park	1892–1894
Macon Highlanders/Brigands/Peaches/Tigers	Baseball	South Atlantic League	Central City Park and Luther Williams Field	1904–1917, 1923–1930
Macon Peaches/Dodgers/Redbirds/Pirates	Baseball	Southeastern League (1932), South Atlantic League (1936–42, 1946–60, 1962–63, 1980–87), Southern Association (1961), Southern League (1964, 1966–67)	Luther Williams Field	1932, 1936–1942, 1946–1960, 1961–1964, 1966–1967, 1980–1982
Macon Braves	Baseball	South Atlantic League	Luther Williams Field	1991–2002
Macon Peaches	Baseball	Southeastern League	Luther Williams Field	2003
Macon Music	Baseball	South Coast League	Luther Williams Field	2007
Macon Pinetoppers	Baseball	Peach State League	Luther Williams Field	2010
Macon Blaze	Basketball	World Basketball Association	Macon Coliseum	2005
Macon Whoopees	Ice hockey	Southern Hockey League	Macon Coliseum	1974
Macon Whoopee	Ice hockey	Central Hockey League (1996-2001), ECHL (2001-02)	Macon Coliseum	1996–2002
Macon Trax	Ice hockey	Atlantic Coast Hockey League (2002–03), World Hockey Association 2 (2003-04), Southern Professional Hockey League (2004–05)	Macon Coliseum	2002–2005
Macon Knights	Arena football	af2	Macon Coliseum	2001–2006
Macon Steel	Indoor football	American Indoor Football	Macon Coliseum	2012
Georgia Doom	Indoor football	American Arena League	Macon Coliseum	2018–2019
Middle Georgia United	Soccer	UPSL	Cavalier Fields	2021-2021

Parks and recreation

The city maintains several parks and community centers.

• Ocmulgee Heritage Trail - a green way of parks, plazas, and landmarks along the Ocmulgee River in downtown Macon
• Bloomfield Park
• East Macon Park
• Frank Johnson Recreation Center
• Freedom Park
• L.H. Williams Community School Center
• Memorial Park
• North Macon Park
• Rosa Jackson
• Senior Center
• John Drew Smith Tennis Center
• Tattnall Square Tennis Center
• Charles H. Jones Gateway Park
• Carolyn Crayton Park (formerly Central City Park)
• Central City Skatepark

Baconsfield Park

U.S. Senator Augustus Bacon, of Georgia, in his 1911 will, devised land in Macon in trust, to be used as a public park for the exclusive benefit of white people. The park, known as Baconsfield, was operated in that manner for many years. In Evans v. Newton, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the park could not continue to be operated on a racially discriminatory basis. The Supreme Court of Georgia thereupon declared "that the sole purpose for which the trust was created has become impossible of accomplishment" and remanded the case to the trial court, which held cy-près doctrine to be inapplicable, since the park's segregated character was an essential and inseparable part of Bacon's plan. The trial court ruled that the trust failed and that the property reverted to Bacon's heirs. The Supreme Court of Georgia and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed. The 50-acre (20 ha) park was lost and commercially developed.

Education

Public schools

Bibb County Public School District operates district public schools.

Public high schools include:

• Central High School
• Howard High School
• Northeast Health Science Magnet High School
• Rutland High School
• Southwest Magnet High School and Law Academy
• Westside High School

Georgia Academy for the Blind, operated by the state of Georgia, is a statewide school for blind students.

Also operated by Bibb County Public Schools:

• Elam Alexander Academy
• Northwoods Academy

Private high schools

Macon is home to several private high schools, many of which were established as segregation academies for parents wishing to avoid the desegration of private schools.

• Covenant Academy
• First Presbyterian Day School
• Mount de Sales Academy
• Stratford Academy
• Tattnall Square Academy
• Windsor Academy

State public charter schools

• The Academy for Classical Education
• Cirrus Academy Charter School

Colleges and universities

Approximately 30,000 college students live in the greater Macon area.

• Central Georgia Technical College
• Mercer University
• Middle Georgia State University
• Miller-Motte Technical College - satellite campus
• Wesleyan College

Media

Macon has a substantial number of local television and radio stations. It is also served by two local papers.

Newspapers and magazines

• The 11th Hour
• Gateway Macon (web portal), The Local's Guide for Things To Do in Macon
• Macon Business Journal, a journal chronicling the business community in the Middle Georgia region
• Macon Community News, a monthly positive news print newspaper
• The Mercer Cluster
• The Telegraph, a daily newspaper published in Macon

Infrastructure

Hospitals

• The Medical Center, Navicent Health (a part of Atrium Health)
• Atrium Health Navicent Beverly Knight Olson Children's Hospital (formerly The Children's Hospital Of Central Georgia)
• Piedmont Health Macon (formerly Coliseum Medical Centers)
  • Piedmont Macon Medical Center
  • Piedmont Macon North Hospital
• The American Red Cross of Central Georgia
• Central Georgia Rehabilitation Hospital

Transportation

Airports

• Macon Downtown Airport is located near downtown. It has a large number of corporate and private aviation aircraft.
• Middle Georgia Regional Airport provides public air service to Macon as well as cargo flights. The airport is situated 9 mi (14 km) south of downtown.

Highways

Interstates:

•  Interstate 16
•  Interstate 75
•  Interstate 475
•  Interstate 14 (proposed)

U.S. Routes:

• U.S. Route 23
• U.S. Route 41
• U.S. Route 80
• U.S. Route 129

State Routes:

• State Route 11
• State Route 19
• State Route 22
• State Route 49
• State Route 74
• State Route 87
• State Route 87 Connector
• State Route 247
• State Route 401 (unsigned designation for I-75)
• State Route 404 (unsigned designation for I-16)
• State Route 408 (unsigned designation for I-475)
• State Route 540 (Fall Line Freeway)

Mass transit

The Macon Transit Authority (MTA) is Macon's public-transit system, operating the Public Transit City Bus System throughout Macon-Bibb County. As of 2022, the MTA has a total of 10 city bus routes, operating out of the Terminal Station hub.

Intercity bus and rail

Greyhound Lines provides intercity bus service. In 2019, they moved from a stand-alone bus station to the Terminal Station to be in the same hub as the local mass transit busses.

Macon grew as a center of rail transport after the 1846 opening of the Macon and Western Railroad. Two of the most note-worthy train companies operating through the city were the Central of Georgia Railway and the Southern Railway. The city continued to be served by passenger trains at Terminal Station until 1971. The Frisco Railroad's Kansas City–Florida Special served the city until 1964. The Southern's Royal Palm ran from Cincinnati, through Macon, to Miami, Florida until 1966. (A truncated route served to Valdosta, Georgia until 1970.) The Central of Georgia's Nancy Hanks ran through Macon, from Atlanta to Savannah until 1971. Since at least 2006 Macon has been included in the proposed Georgia Rail Passenger Program to restore inter-city rail service but as of 2020, Georgia lacks any inter-city passenger rail service other than the federally funded inter-state Amtrak services. In 2022, Amtrak announced a new fifteen year plan to expand its services, which Macon was included in.

Pedestrians and cycling

Notable people

Sister cities

Macon has six sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):

See also

In Spanish: Macon (Georgia) para niños