Hazlehurst is the county seat of Jeff Davis County, Georgia, a small city in the wiregrass region of the state's south-central coastal plain. The area was once a vast pine forest and hunting ground for the Creek and Cherokee peoples before settlement pushed into the interior. The community now known as Hazlehurst was initially called Handtown, after the Hand family who lived there, but it took permanent shape in 1870 when it was established as a stop on the railroad line running from Macon to Brunswick. That rail connection anchored the town's early economy, which centered on timber and the region's pine products. Today the city remains a compact, service-oriented seat of government and commerce, with residential neighborhoods laid out around a small downtown core and the county courthouse. U.S. Highways 221 and 341 intersect here, making Hazlehurst a crossroads for travelers moving through the coastal plain between the fall line and the Atlantic coast. Agriculture, timber, and county institutions provide much of the local employment base, a pattern typical of the wiregrass counties. The city's character is quiet and unhurried. The Hazlehurst–Jeff Davis Historical Museum, in a downtown storefront, collects artifacts documenting the town's railroad origins and the county's rural past. Each year Hazlehurst is one of the largest stops along Peaches to the Beaches, a long-running multi-county yard sale that follows a route from the peach belt to the coast. Surrounding the city, managed pine forests and bottomlands near creeks and the Altamaha River basin offer hunting, fishing, and paddling. For homebuyers, Hazlehurst provides the pace and affordability of small-town South Georgia within reasonable reach of larger regional centers.