Short answers, pulled from the story.
Macon, officially Macon-Bibb County, is located in Central Georgia, 85 miles southeast of Atlanta and 165 miles northwest of Savannah. Its population was 157,346 in the 2020 census, making it Georgia's fourth-largest city after Augusta.
Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park preserves earthwork mounds built by the Mississippian culture around 950-1150 AD and documents 13,000 years of continuous human habitation at the site. It is the first Traditional Cultural Property designated by the National Park Service east of the Mississippi River and remains sacred to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
Macon is the home of Otis Redding, Little Richard, and the Allman Brothers Band, as well as Randy Crawford, Emmett Miller, Lucille Hegamin, and R.E.M. members Mike Mills and Bill Berry. Capricorn Records, run by Macon natives Phil Walden and Alan Walden, made the city a Southern rock production center in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Voters approved the consolidation on the 31st of July, 2012, with 57.8% approval in Macon and 56.7% in Bibb County. The merger became official on the 1st of January, 2014, after four previous consolidation attempts in 1933, 1960, 1972, and 1976 had all failed.
The International Cherry Blossom Festival is a 10-day celebration held every mid-March in Macon, Georgia. It is one of several annual festivals in the city, which also include the Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration, the Juneteenth Freedom Festival, and the Pan African Festival.
Fort Benjamin Hawkins was built in 1809 at President Thomas Jefferson's direction after the Creek were forced to cede lands east of the Ocmulgee River. Positioned at the river's most inland navigable point, it served as a trading post, military command headquarters, and a major supply depot during the War of 1812 and the Creek War of 1813, operating until it was decommissioned around 1828.