Waycross Post Office and Courthouse

Waycross sits at the northern edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, the largest blackwater swamp in North America, and in nineteen eleven the federal government built it a courthouse and post office to match its aspirations as a railroad hub and regional center. The building was designed by James Knox Taylor, the supervising architect of the Treasury Department, in the Romano-Tuscan Renaissance style , a stone and brick facade that announced federal authority at the edge of the swamp.

The building served as both courthouse for the Southern District of Georgia and post office until nineteen seventy-five, then expanded in nineteen thirty-six when the district court's workload had grown. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and still stands in downtown Waycross, now used as a commercial building. The Okefenokee Preservation Society, organized here in nineteen eighteen, eventually succeeded in having the swamp protected as a National Wildlife Refuge.