Waycross is the county seat of Ware County in southeast Georgia and the county's only incorporated municipality. It sits at the junction of several rail corridors, a position that shaped the city from the beginning: Waycross began as a stagecoach crossroads and became a true railroad town once tracks arrived in the mid-1800s. The city's rail heritage remains visible in its two National Register historic districts — the Waycross Historic District and the Downtown Waycross Historic District — where Victorian and early-20th-century architecture lines the streets near the depot and along Plant Avenue, named for railroad builder Henry Bradley Plant. Timber and rail built the local economy. In the early 1900s the Hebard Cypress Company operated a large sawmill near Waycross and built railroads into the Okefenokee Swamp to haul cypress timber, turpentine, and other forest products. That extractive era has long since given way to a more diversified mix of retail, health care, and public-sector employment, with the city serving as the commercial hub for Ware and surrounding Pierce County communities. The city is perhaps best known today as the gateway to the Okefenokee Swamp, the vast blackwater wetland that lies just to the south. That proximity, combined with its role as a regional retail, medical, and employment center, gives Waycross an outsized presence in an otherwise rural corner of the state. South Georgia State College maintains a location in the city, adding an educational anchor to the local economy. With a population of about 14,000, Waycross offers the pace and affordability of a small Southern city while functioning as a hub for a much larger surrounding area. Its downtown is part of Georgia's Main Street network, and the historic neighborhoods, rail depots, and swamp-access recreation together define a place that is equal parts working rail town and outdoor gateway.