Bartow, Georgia
Seal of Georgia
Bartow · Jefferson County, Georgia
Population 208 (est. 2026: ~200)
Source: Census ACS 2023 · ACS 2023 + -4.33% annual growth projection

Bartow, Georgia

Jefferson County, Georgia · Population 186

Bartow sits in the rural heart of Jefferson County, roughly 8 miles from Louisville, the county seat. It is a small, quiet place — 219 residents by the most recent count — tucked into Georgia's coastal plain where the land is flat, the pines run close to the road, and the pace of life reflects a community built around stability rather than growth. Bartow is not a suburb of anything. There is no commuter logic at work here. This is a town where people live because they are from here, or because they chose a slower life in a county that does not make headlines.

People & Demographics

Bartow's population of 219 skews older. The median age is 59.5, which is substantially higher than Georgia's statewide median and signals a community past its growth years. Only 9 residents are children under 18. The town is nearly evenly split by race — 120 white residents and 97 Black residents — in a county of 15,709. Average household size is 1.56, well below the state average, consistent with older, smaller households. There are 140 total households, of which 60 are family households.

Economy & Employment

The median household income in Bartow is $43,750, and per capita income runs $40,314. Context matters: Georgia's statewide median household income runs well above $60,000, which puts Bartow below the state average but not dramatically so for this part of rural Georgia. Of 141 residents counted in the labor force, 5 are unemployed. The work that people do here is not concentrated in one sector that shows up in the data — what is clear is that 136 workers commute out, which means Bartow is not a jobs center. It is a place people sleep and return to.

Poverty touches 19 residents, a share worth noting in a town of this size.

Housing

Bartow's housing market reflects rural Georgia at its most accessible. Median home value sits at $92,200 — a figure that makes ownership realistic even on modest incomes. Median rent is $550 per month. Of 174 total housing units, 140 are occupied and 34 sit vacant, a vacancy rate of roughly 20 percent. That is elevated, and it tracks with population trends in small rural towns across this region — some houses were built for a larger town than exists today.

Owner-occupied units number 118 against 22 renter-occupied. The ownership rate here is high. This is a community of people who own the place they live in.

Schools

Students in Bartow attend Jefferson County schools, with no district boundary between this town and the rest of the county system.

Louisville, 8 miles away, is where the bulk of school infrastructure sits.

Getting Around

Bartow is car-dependent without exception. Of 136 workers, 102 drove alone and 28 carpooled. Zero used public transit. Zero walked to work. Six worked from home. Total aggregate commute time across all workers is 3,735 minutes, which averages out to roughly 27 minutes per worker each way — consistent with driving to Louisville or the Augusta metro corridor.

Healthcare

Jefferson Hospital serves the county. It is located in Louisville. For a searchable list of licensed healthcare providers with a Bartow address registered in the CMS National Provider Identifier system, see the NPI Registry.

Library

The nearest library is Wadley Public Library, approximately 0.4 miles from Bartow's center. Phone: (478) 252-1366.

Natural Hazards

Jefferson County has a long FEMA declaration history that tells the story of this region's exposure to storms and weather events:

The pattern is clear: this county gets hit by Atlantic and Gulf hurricanes tracking inland, and it is not immune to winter storm events either. Helene in 2024 was particularly disruptive, generating three separate federal actions within a single storm season.

Government & Municipal Code

Bartow's municipal code is published through Municode and available at library.municode.com/ga/bartow_county. The town does not have a local building code on file.

Weather

Current forecasts for Bartow are available through the National Weather Service. Active weather alerts can be found at alerts.weather.gov. The nearest official weather observation station is Louisville, Georgia, 8.1 miles away.

References

The law belongs to the people. Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 590 U.S. (2020)