Ray City Plow Day

The tradition & historical record

Ray City is a city in Berrien County and Lanier County, Georgia, United States. The population was 956 in 2020. ¹

Early variant names were "Ray's Pond" and "Ray's Mill". The community was named after Thomas M. Ray, the proprietor of a local mill. ¹

Ray City is in southern Berrien County, with a small portion extending south into Lanier County. U.S. Route 129 passes through the city, leading north 10 miles (16 km) to Nashville, the Berrien county seat, and east 8 miles (13 km) to Lakeland, the Lanier county seat. Georgia State Route 125 leads south from Ray City 18 miles (29 km) to Valdosta, and State Route 37 leads west 14 miles (23 km) to Adel. According to the United States Census Bureau, Ray City has a total area of 1.2 square miles (3.0 km2), of which 0.52 acres (2,119 m2), or 0.07%, are water. Beaverdam Creek flows through the middle of the city, and Batterbee Branch flows through the west side. The two streams join west of Ray City to form Cat Creek, a south-flowing tributary of the Withlacoochee River, part of the Suwannee River watershed. ¹

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 956 people, 484 households, and 313 families residing in the city. ¹

Residents of Barrien County are in the Berrien County School District. Residents of Lanier County are in the Lanier County School District. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Ray City, Georgia”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Ray City Plow Day is recorded in open cultural data. The structured record cited below does not describe the practice, and this entry has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²