For pre-formatted natality & mortality data please see Vital Statistics Reports (VSR).

For other health data resources please see the Health Data & Info section.

Health Care
Screven County had 8.9 licensed nursing home beds per 100 persons in 1999, compared with the state average of 5.5 per 100 persons. In 1999, the number of physicians in the county per 10,000 persons was 2.8, compared to the state average of 19.3. For more community indicators, please go to OASIS .

History*

Revolutionary War General James Screven, who died in the war. Created in 1793 from parts of Burke and Effingham counties, parts of the original county later formed Bulloch and Jenkins counties.

The founding of Sylvania, a city in Screven County, is said to have been created as the result of a curse. In 1821, an itinerant minister, Lorenzo Dow, came to preach at the local church in Jacksonborough, the small town that was at that point Screven's county seat. A pack of rowdy drunks attacked Dow but he was rescued by a man named Seaborn Goodall.

Later, as Dow was leaving town, he was attacked again. As he stood on the bridge out of town, he prayed that everything in the the town be destroyed -- everything but the home of Goodall.

Within 30 years, Jacksonborough disappeared due to mysterious fires and floods. By 1847, a new town, Sylvania, grew up just south of Jacksonborough and became the county seat.