FITZGERALD, a city of southern Georgia, U.S.A., 140m. W. by S. of Savannah; the county seat of Ben Hill county. It is served by the Atlanta, Birmingham and Coast and the Seaboard Air Line railways. The population was 6,870 in 1920 (36% negroes) and was 6,412 in 1930 by the Federal census. The city is a shipping point for cotton, tobacco, peaches, melons, vegetables, lumber, naval stores and other products of the region. It has railroad shops, wood-working plants, cotton mills, cotton-seed oil and peanut-oil mills and other manufacturing industries. Fitzgerald was settled in 1895 by a group of Union veterans under the leadership of P. H. Fitzgerald, and was incorporated as a city in 1896. The streets running north and south in the eastern half of the city were named after Northern generals ; those in the western half, after Southern generals ; and the four drives around the city, after famous battleships.