Jenkins County was created on Aug. 17, 1905 by an act of the General Assembly (Ga. Laws 1905, p. 57). Formed from portions of Bulloch, Burke, Emanuel, and Screven counties, Jenkins County’s original boundaries were specified as:

  Beginning at a point in Burke county in the middle of the railroad track one mile west of the public road which crosses the Central of Georgia railway track at the station of Herndon, and running thence in a straight line to a point one-quarter (?) of a mile west and one-quarter (?) of a mile north of the Henry Wilkes-Jones (now occupied by Robert Law) dwelling house; thence in a straight line to the center of the crossing of the Savannah and Louisville and Waynesboro and Herndon public roads; thence in a straight line to a point one mile north of Perkins station on the Augusta and Savannah railroad; from thence in a straight line to the confluence of the streams that form Beaver Dam creek; from thence down said creek to where it crosses from Burke into Screven county; from thence in a straight line to the Ogeechee river, said line passing one and a half miles by the railroad track below the railroad depot at Scarboro, a station on the Central of Georgia railway in Screven county; thence down the Ogeechee river to a point one hundred (100) feet above Capps incorporated bridge; from thence in a straight line to the northwest corner of Lockhart (46th district line), Bulloch county; from thence a straight line to Johnson’s crossing on the Millen and Southwest railroad in Emanuel county, and from thence a straight line to the starting point in Burke county.

On Aug. 17, 1906, the General Assembly amended the 1905 act to correct “a manifest error in the description of the boundary between Jenkins, Bulloch and Emanuel counties . . .” (Ga. Law. 1906, p. 83). According to the 1906 amendment:

  That, beginning in the first section of said Act in the twenty-fourth line thereof after the words “Capp’s incorporated bridge,” the language, “from thence in a straight line to the northwest corner of Lockhart (46th district), Bulloch county; from thence in a straight line to Johnson’s crossing on the Millen and Southwestern Railroad in Emanuel county,” be stricken for the reason it was not the intention of the Legislature to use said language, and substitute in lieu thereof the line as agreed on between the counties at interest, “from thence a straight line to a dead pine tree on the Moore public road, near the dwelling-house of L. C. Lanier; from thence in a straight line to Johnson’s crossing on the Millen and Southwestern Railroad in Emanuel county.”

Georgia’s 140th county was named for former governor Charles Jenkins (1805-1883), who served from 1865-1868.