By W. A. Huff
The Albany "Herald," February 11, 1913
I never see or hear anything about the country around and about Albany that I do not think of Jno. P. Fort.
Colonel Fort, by his wise experiment and persistent efforts, made it possible for white people to live in a country which had heretofore been regarded as almost uninhabitable.
Colonel Fort called on me as he passed through Macon last week and on his way to his farm in south Georgia. Like myself, he is rapidly yielding to the weight of years as they carry him along the down-hill of life, but oh, what a halo of business glory will brighten and bless forever the memory of southwest Georgia's greatest benefactor!
A grateful people will never be able to build a monument high enough to signalize the debt they owe to Jno. P. Fort. But as the good that men do lives after them, all coming generations will breathe out prayers of praise for him who made it possible for their ancestors to know the eternal joys that flow from the bosom of Mother Earth through the life-giving arteries of artesian wells.
In the meantime you will continue to preach to the farmers of Georgia the gospel of truth and righteousness from the text—"The Life Worth Living," which, when illustrated, means—peace, health, happiness, and prosperity, for all who learn to live at home and board at the same place.
Editorial
The Clayton "Tribune," Friday, May 9, 1913
Col. John P. Fort, a graduate of Oglethorpe College, and one of the men who first got a vision of the future possibilities of Rabun County's apples, was in Clayton, Wednesday. Colonel Fort owns one of the finest orchards in the county at Mountain City, and has done more in the way of growing fine fruits and advertising northeast Georgia, thereby enhancing the value of our mountain lands, than any other one man. Colonel Fort is now about seventy-one years of age, but is still very active. He joined the Confederate army in the beginning of the Civil War as a private, but was promoted and at the close he came out with honors and as a lieutenant. As Dr. Fort is able to talk with nature, we might compare him with Benjamin Franklin; he has been honored by our University with the degree of Doctor of Science. Dr. Fort was not satisfied with growing apples in northeast Georgia (in Rabun County), which took the prize in Spokane, Washington, at the great apple show, and for the last year or so he has been studying the conditions and needs of south and southwest Georgia, and while he was on duty as a Confederate soldier, he saw the beautiful Wakulla River on the coast of Florida, as it bursts forth into the Apalachee Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Fort's ability to reason and know things told him that this beautiful clear river had its origin away up in the "old red hills of Georgia," and last year he made another trip to see this great spring or bay and to learn more about it. Dr. Fort traced the formation and vegetation up through Florida and on through the counties of Decatur, Grady, Early, Miller, Baker, Mitchell, Calhoun, Dougherty, etc., and he is satisfied that it heads in the counties of Laurens, Twigg, and Bibb. Dr. Fort owns a large plantation in Dougherty County, containing some three thousand acres, and last year he bored an artesian well on this farm about seven hundred feet deep, at an expense of about three thousand dollars, and not to his surprise, but to the surprise of his neighbors, Georgia, and our United States Government, he tapped the undercurrent of the beautiful Wakulla River and through a three-inch pipe, it has been estimated, a flow of eighty thousand gallons per day can be attained, and the expense of obtaining this flow and building reservoirs from which to conduct the waters to the crops is much cheaper in comparison with any other method of irrigation known to the world. This discovery by Dr. Fort will probably make it possible for other such discoveries to be made, and it has more than doubled the value of the farming lands in south Georgia, which are so subject to drouths. This theory of Dr. Fort's is thoroughly demonstrated as the water of this well rises and falls with the Gulf tide and the water is inexhaustible and his discovery is so highly prized by the Irrigation Bureau of the Department of Agriculture, that it has conferred upon Dr. Fort the signal dignity of "Collaborator," and monthly there comes and will come to him during his life a treasury draft as a token from his country of its government's appreciation and value of his discovery, and the time is now here that not only northeast and southwest Georgia will tip their hats to Dr. Fort's name, but the whole nation will recognize Dr. Fort's ability as a scientist, and his name will go down to future generations as one of America's greatest men.