Exploring Georgia Trivia Quiz

Answer: King George II of England

Sweet Georgia Brown had two left feet but King George II was the man in charge when James Oglethorpe founded the colony on February 12, 1733, and named it for the British king who reigned from 1727 to 1760.

Answer: Vidalia

The Vidalia onion can only be grown in the fields around Vidalia and Glennville. They really are a sweet onion, due to the low sulfur content of the soil in those areas. They are of Granex varieties but can only be called Vidalias when grown in the proper places. The restrictions are similar to restricting the name "champagne" to sparkling wines bottled in the Champagne region of France.

Answer: Gainesville

Gainesville was founded in 1821. After World War II, Jesse Jewell started raising chickens there; poultry would in time become Georgia's largest agricultural crop. Gainesville takes its chicken-eating seriously; in 1961, the city council voted to make it illegal to eat chicken with a fork.

Answer: Quest for Watermelon

Billing itself as the watermelon capital of the world because of the large, sweet melons grown there, Cordele celebrates the fruit during June each year. The quest to find watermelon involves looking around city hall; among other activities there is a watermelon gospel sing and, of course, a watermelon-eating contest.

Answer: Rome

Marshall Forest in Rome is one of the last old-growth forests in Georgia. It is said to be the only virgin forest within the city limits of any city in the U.S. The 311 acre (126 ha) forest is named after the Marshall family, who bought the land it is on in 1880.

Answer: Okefenokee

The Okefenokee Swamp encompasses over 438,000 acres (177,252 ha), mostly in Georgia but spilling into Florida. A blackwater swamp is one in which a slow-moving river picks up decaying vegetation from a forest, turning the water a dark brown. Okefenokee is home to hundreds of species of flora and fauna.

Answer: Auraria

Perhaps I should have asked "Which town was it?" because Auraria is now a ghost town, not much different from many get-rich-quick places in American history. The town name comes from 'aurum', the Latin term for gold. It is in northern Georgia, on land formerly owned by the Cherokee tribe.

The rush started in 1828; the veins of gold had pretty much petered out by the time gold was discovered in California in 1848.

Answer: St. Marys

St. Marys is a coastal community, located on the St. Marys River. Spaniards settled there in 1566, one year after St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest settlement in what would become the United States. A U.S. Navy submarine base is located in St. Marys.

Answer: Stone Mountain

Stone Mountain is a quartz monzonite mountain that was formed about 300 million years ago. In 1916, work began on carving the north face of the mountain as a Confederate Civil War monument. With many stops and starts, it took until 1972, but the carving shows Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and their horses.

It measures 90 by 190 feet (27 by 58 m).

Answer: peanuts, peaches, pecans

Georgia has 11.1 million acres of farmland and its climate allows a wide diversity of fruits and vegetables to be grown. It consistently leads the nation in production of peanuts and pecans. Maybe surprisingly, it leads the Union in blueberry production.

But while Georgia is known as the "Peach State" and is rightly proud of that reputation, it usually ranks second or third behind California and South Carolina in the tonnage of peaches produced each year.