Putnam County is a county in Georgia, United States, in the west-central part of the state, astride the Oconee River between Atlanta and Macon. It had a population of 22,047 at the 2020 census and covers 361 square miles (930 km2), of which 345 square miles are land and 16 square miles are water, centred near 33°19′N 83°22′W.
Eatonton is the county seat, and its postal code is 31024. The county has one incorporated city, one census-designated place, and a wide scatter of unincorporated rural communities. Georgia has no civil townships, so land here is organized directly by county and militia-district lines rather than township government. Putnam sits in the Eastern time zone.
Towns & Villages in Putnam County
Eatonton is Putnam’s only incorporated municipality; Crooked Creek, on the shore of Lake Oconee, is a census-designated place with no city government of its own. The rest of the county is made up of unincorporated communities and rural crossroads, several of them former mill or plantation settlements dating to the 1800s. Population figures below are shown only where confirmed; unconfirmed cells read —.
| Place | Type | Pop. | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eatonton | City · seat | — | 31024 |
| Crooked Creek | CDP | — | 31024 |
| Dennis | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Dennis Station | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Flat Rock | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Glades Cross-Roads | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Hallwood | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Harmony | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Hunts | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Imperial | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Jefferson | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Kinderhook | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Linchburg | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Meda | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Nona | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Note | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Oconee Springs | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Phoenix | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Reids Crossroads | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Resseaus Crossroads | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Rockville | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Rudden | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Stanfordville | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Turnwold | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Union Hill | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Warfield | Unincorp. | — | — |
| Willard | Unincorp. | — | — |
“Note” and “Nona” are two separate rural post-office-era communities near the Baldwin County line and are not a mis-split of one name.
ZIP Codes
- 31024 — Eatonton (covers the great majority of the county, including Crooked Creek and the Lake Oconee shoreline)
Most of the smaller crossroads communities share Eatonton’s ZIP rather than having their own post office.
Geography
Putnam County lies in Georgia’s Piedmont, a belt of rolling hills between the mountains and the coastal plain. The Oconee River crosses the county and is impounded to form Lake Oconee on the eastern side and, just downstream, Lake Sinclair on the southern side, both reservoirs built by Georgia Power. The rest of the terrain is a mix of pasture, pine and hardwood forest, and pockets of remaining row-crop farmland.
Putnam borders Morgan County to the north, Greene County to the northeast, Hancock County to the east, Baldwin County to the southeast, Jones County to the southwest, and Jasper County to the west.
Demographics
Putnam County had 22,047 residents at the 2020 census, giving a density of roughly 64 people per square mile of land. Eatonton is the largest population center, with Crooked Creek’s lakeside CDP the second largest. Median household income in the county has historically run below the Georgia median of $74,632, though the Lake Oconee resort corridor has pulled in higher-income retirees and second-home owners over the past two decades, widening the gap between the lake shoreline and the rest of the county.
Economy & Local Life
Lake Oconee’s resort and golf-course development is now the county’s biggest economic driver, supporting hospitality, real estate, and construction jobs that did not exist a generation ago. Away from the lake, dairy farming and cattle have become more prominent than the cotton growing that once defined the county, alongside timber and pasture land. Eatonton is home to the Rock Eagle 4-H Center, one of the largest 4-H camps in the country, built around a Native American effigy mound of stacked quartz boulders shaped like a bird.
History
Putnam County was created on December 10, 1807, from Baldwin County, and named for Israel Putnam, a Revolutionary War general. Eatonton, the seat, grew up as a cotton market town on the stagecoach road between Augusta and Milledgeville, then Georgia’s capital. Author Joel Chandler Harris, creator of the Uncle Remus tales, worked as a teenage printer’s apprentice at Turnwold Plantation in the county in the 1860s, where he first heard many of the folk stories he later published. The county’s 20th-century economy shifted from cotton to dairy and, since the 1990s, to lakeside development around Lake Oconee.
Getting There
U.S. Routes 129 and 441 and State Routes 16, 24, 44, 142, and 212 cross the county, with US 441 running through Eatonton itself.
- Madison — about 20 miles north
- Milledgeville — about 20 miles southeast
- Macon — about 35 miles south
- Atlanta — about 75 miles northwest
The nearest commercial airport is Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; Middle Georgia Regional Airport in Macon offers general aviation service closer to the county.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Putnam County, Georgia?
It sits in central Georgia’s Piedmont region, on the Oconee River between Atlanta and Macon.
What is the population of Putnam County?
It had a population of 22,047 at the 2020 census.
How big is Putnam County?
It covers 361 square miles (930 km2), of which 16 square miles are water.
What is the county seat of Putnam County?
Eatonton is the county seat.
How many towns are in Putnam County?
One incorporated city, Eatonton, plus the Crooked Creek CDP and about two dozen unincorporated communities.
What ZIP codes are in Putnam County?
Eatonton’s 31024 covers nearly the whole county, including the Lake Oconee shoreline.
What lakes are in Putnam County?
Lake Oconee and Lake Sinclair, both Oconee River reservoirs, form much of the county’s eastern and southern borders.
More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Georgia.