Turner County was organized from parts of Irwin, Wilcox, Worth and Dooly counties in 1905. It is named for Confederate Captain Henry Gray Turner, veteran of Gettysburg, member of Congress and the state legislature, then a Georgia Supreme Court justice. Ashburn, the county seat, is named to honor W.W. Ashburn of Eastman who built a sawmill at this site and fostered expansion of the town that grew up around it.