The installation of Rudolph Patterson as President of the State Bar of Georgia for the next year is a new link in the connection between Macon lawyers and State Bar organizations. The Georgia Bar Association, predecessor of the State Bar, was formed largely through the efforts of Macon lawyers.
L. N. Whittle of Macon, then a vice president of the American Bar Association, called a meeting in 1883 to establish a state organization of lawyers. The Georgia Bar Association was the result. Clifford Anderson of Macon chaired the committee which drew up the charter of the Association, and the charter was granted by the Superior Court of Bibb County.
Whittle became the first president of the Georgia Bar Association in 1884, but he never presided over his creation. At the first annual meeting he was absent, already ill with the disease which would soon kill him.
Four of the first ten presidents of the Association were Macon lawyers; Clifford Anderson, Walter B. Hill, and Washington Dessau, in addition to Whittle.
The first state business office of the Georgia Bar Association was in Macon, located in the Persons Building (American Federal) for many years. During much of this time, Madrid Williams was the executive director of the Association. With a part time staff, she performed the services now handled by dozens.
W. B. Hill was the first secretary of the Association, and other Macon lawyers, Orville A. Park, Harry Strozier, R. Lanier Anderson, Jr., Charles Bloch, John Comer, Frank Jones, Benning Grice, and Maurcie Thomas, served as secretary, acting or assistant secretary, for most of the Association's existence.
John B. Harris was the first and long editor of the Georgia Bar Journal, which was usually published by the J. W. Burke Co. in Macon.
In 1969, five years after the Georgia Bar Association was replaced by the State Bar of Georgia, the state headquarters was moved from Macon to Atlanta, where it could find more expensive accommodations.
Frank M. McKenney