On August 7, 1919 W.B. Vaughan was appointed by the Georgia General Assembly as the first mayor of White. The town grew and prospered until it suffered a tremendous loss in 1925 when a fire began in the store of Mr. Harry Woodall. Destroyed were three stores, three residences, a garage, grist mill, a vacant bank building, restaurant, and the Odd Fellows’ Hall. The town began to build back and by 1928 there were seven general merchandise stores, two barber shops, a blacksmith shop, two grist mills, two garages, two service stations, two restaurants, a meat market, an Odd Fellow and Masonic Hall, a new brick junior high school, two lumber mills and the ore mines at Aubrey. All the stores had a least two clerks and some as many as four or five which made White a “boom town”.
This continued until the stock market crash in 1929 followed by the depression of the early 1930’s causing many of the businesses to close. In the mid 1930’s just as the town began to recover a new highway was built which moved the main flow of traffic from the original Old Tennessee Highway location east to Highway 411 where it still remains the main corridor through White. During the 1940’s 50’s and 60’s the town government began to implement services such as water, sanitation, natural gas, animal control, business license, civil defense, street lights, police and fire departments, franchise taxes, restructured the property tax system and improvements on city streets.
The town became the City of White in 1962 when the original charter was revised. During the 1970’s the city elected the first and only female mayor, Glenda Bell Dupree, who made improvements to the city hall, held a bicentennial celebration in 1976, received a donation of an ambulance for the city, property was purchased and a new health clinic was established, a pumper fire truck was purchased and a 22 man volunteer fire department was established.
The 80’s, 90’s and early 2000 brought many changes mostly due to the dedication of Mayor O.W. Allen. He had many accomplishments during the 30 years of service such as advancing the city with computers, keeping city hall open 40 hours a week, upgrades for water and sewer, road projects, trying to bring business and industry to the community, repairing and upgrading the children’s park, and always trying to help the Community of White. Many trials and tribulations have come along for the city but through it all we have grown into a beautiful family oriented community.