Lamar County, Georgia was created in 1920 from the western portion of Monroe County and the eastern portion of Pike County.  The county seat is Barnesville. 
     The town of Barnesville, named in honor of Gideon Barnes who settled in the southeastern portion of Pike County in 1826, was the largest town in Pike County. There had been the desire among the residents for a number of years to form a new county because of the distances to Zebulon, the county seat of Pike County, and to Forsyth, the county seat of Monroe County.  In 1920, therefore, the residents petitioned the Georgia Legislature for a new county. Lamar was chosen for the county name in honor of one of Georgia's distinguished sons, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar.
     Gideon Barnes, the founder of Barnesville, was born December 2, 1791 in Southampton County, Virginia. He initially settled in Jones County, Georgia where he married Miss Sarah Crawford Raiford. In 1826 he moved to Pike County and built a house at the intersection of two Indian trails. What began as a trading business, grew into a stage coach line to Columbus, a tavern, and eventually a hotel. Meanwhile a village grew up around his property and began to be called Barnesville. Gideon's first wife, Miss Sarah, died in 1861 and was buried in an old cemetery near the Methodist Church. Gideon died in Barnesville, May 10, 1871.  He and his second wife, Huldah Ann Barnes, are buried in the Greenwood Cemetery.
     Because Lamar County was organized after the 1920 census was taken, the 1930 Census was the first one conducted in Lamar County.  Monroe and Pike County census reports from 1830 to 1920 should be checked for information about early residents of what would become Lamar County.