WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Houston County just keeps on booming and now the county has a new water treatment plant to serve thousands of homes. A man who has lived in Warner Robins since the 1940s says the change is undeniable.
“Everywhere you turn around, dirt is being turned to build something,” said Jerome Stephens.
Central Georgia’s ‘boomtown’ isn’t slowing down either. Tucked away in Kathleen is a water plant that last year alone pumped 5 billion gallons of water to thousands of Houston County homes, like Stephens’.
"I was a year old when I moved here. My mother lived in Atlanta. She left Atlanta and moved to Warner Robins,” he said.
He says the Warner Robins he grew up in isn’t the same city it is today. He remembers when Watson Boulevard was a dirt road.
According to the U.S. Census, Houston County has increased by almost 20,000 people over the last decade, bringing in more jobs, houses and businesses.
Stephens says the town feels like home and he can see what draws people in.
“All the technology that’s coming here, the Bases, as well as Warner Robins, period. All of the contracts that are coming here. It’s drawing people so therefore it bursts at the seams when that happens, so people want houses, they want apartments, they want somewhere to live,” he said.
There will be a dedication ceremony for that water treatment plant at 2 p.m. Friday on Bear Branch Road in Kathleen.