Rebecca was probably established in the late 1890s. The post office opened in 1902 and the town was incorporated in 1904. At the time, it was in Wilcox County. One source states it was named for Rebecca Clark but David Hobby says it was named for Rebecca Douglas Smith, his great-great grandmother. A couple of convenience stores and churches are still open. Agriculture and agribusiness have always been the primary pursuits in the community.

Sammy Young remembers: A few comments about Rebecca, Ga., the town where I grew up. I remember many of the places mentioned in the comments already made. Rebecca Cafe, operated by Mrs. Bessie Sellars was the place to be on Friday nights, eating fried catfish and mullet. The fish, hush puppies and the burgers were the very best. (Mrs Thrower Jones, I remember your family).

The Rebecca swimming pool owned by Mr James T. King was operated by my daddy and mother for many summers. The pool water was used to cool the Diesel engine that ran the cotton gin. And yes it smelled like Clorox because we drained and cleaned it every week (Swim Wed-Sun and closed for cleaning and refilling Mon-Wed).

Remember the Stanford family well. Mr. Julius and Mrs Mamie Davis were an important part of our community since Mr. Julius was the only one around who could fix a television. He was also a beekeeper. I grew up in Youngs Chapel And Rebecca Methodist Church.

I delivered the Albany Herald on my bicycle for many years so I knew almost all the folks living in Rebecca in the 60s.

No better place to grow up!

And Betty Courson remembers the “Clorox pool”: I lived about 5 miles from there until I was 18 and I can remember when each building was occupied, that was in 1963, before then it had started to fade away but my younger days were full of visiting the grocery store getting a coke with peanuts and an Ice Cream Cone, those were the days! There also was a pool there. Each Sunday my Mom and Dad would take us kids over for a swim in this pool that smelt like bleach. One thing for sure when we left we were very clean. The pool and its surrounding building has been gone and buried for many, many years. In fact it was directly behind the cotton Gin building on the left as you are going out of the town. I wish you could find pictures of its bustling day. Thanks for the memories and yes it is a ghost town now, but ghosts still hang around don’t they...

Bill Adams writes: Good Memories! I visited my Aunt and Uncle (Jim and Emma (Adams) King many summers in the 1940’s. Jim had a sawmill, cotton gin and warehouse, and , after he visited us in Florida, worried about his boys not being able to swim, he built a swimming pool. One local boy would sit at the pool entrance with a cigar box to collect the dime admission-if the kids didn’t have a dime, they went in anyway. During the middle 40’s the government furnished German POW’s to work in the sawmill due to the shortage of local labor, and the need for war effort lumber. They also sold fertilizer, seeds, etc to the local farmers on the honor system in an open warehouse. The farmer picked up what he needed-put a note on a sharp spindle on the desk, and my Aunt( a school teacher) would collect the notes and do the bookwork in the evenings. It was a time when your word was your bond, and business was done on a handshake. I long for those days! I spent almost every summer with relatives in Sycamore, Cordele, and Rebecca. My Dad’s family(Adams) in Sycamore had 12 children, so I never ran out of relatives to visit.

Walter Burgess: We lived in Rebecca in the late 60s and my father was the Pastor of Rebecca Baptist Church during that time. It was a perfect place to call home and I still consider it my home town, mainly because I felt like I knew everyone there, which is probably close to the truth. I remember very well Mr. John and Ms. Lee Purswell and they were indeed wonderful people. So many of those folks are vivid parts of my childhood memories and people caring for one another and genuinely being a community was a great thing to be a part of. Small towns where people know all about you and love you anyway should never vanish. Would love to get back there sometime and visit, thanks to all who shared on this site.

Rebecca is more diverse than one might think, for such a rural community. Bernice “Jean” Aplin Lee wrote: I grew up in Rebecca. in a house west of main street on Highway 90. The house is still there but no one lives there now. My mother, Bernice Aplin, still lives in Rebecca just behind Piney Grove Baptist Church on Double Run Street. My father, Henry “Bay” Aplin was the first black city councilman and also the first and only black mayor of Rebecca. He died in April 2002.