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Clayton County
is home to
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
International Airport, the world's busiest
passenger airport and the state's largest employer center,
with a workforce of more than 56,000.
Clayton State University,
founded in 1969 as Clayton Junior College, is located in the
city of Morrow. Spivey Hall, one of the Southeast's premier
recital halls, is on the Clayton State campus. In addition,
the
Georgia Archives moved to Morrow from
downtown Atlanta in the spring of 2003. One area that
remains as a quiet and undisturbed haven for wildlife is the
146-acre Reynolds Nature Preserve.
The Battle of Jonesboro is reenacted annually
during the Fall Festival.Two plantation houses, Stately Oaks
and Ashley Oaks, are available for tours and hold special
holiday events. Clayton County is also the site of the Road
to Tara Museum, which houses the world's largest permanent
Gone
With the Wind exhibition.
Jonesboro's survival from the devastation of the Civil War
and the period of
Reconstruction provided much of the
background for
Margaret Mitchell's
novel.
The population of Clayton
County increased 30 percent between 1990 and 2000, to
236,517. In addition to Jonesboro and Morrow, other
incorporated cities in the county are Forest Park, Lake
City, Lovejoy, and Riverdale.
The largest employers,
including
Delta Air Lines,
are in the transportation, public utility, service, and
retail trade sectors. During the
1996 Olympic Games,
Jonesboro hosted the beach volleyball competition at Atlanta
Beach in Clayton County International Park. The Clayton
County Water Authority also attracts visitors from all over
the world who come to see the county's natural land
application process for the treatment of wastewater. The
system purifies the wastewater and, at the same time,
fertilizes the land; it also produces palletized fertilizer
for the marketplace. |