Georgia Natural Wonder #188 - South Gwinnett County (Part 2). 1,090

[Top Row Dawg]

South Gwinnett County

Now we already did a tangent on North Gwinnett County with Georgia Natural Wonder #181 about Jones Bridge on the Chattahoochee River. We spent a while researching and recovering from our Yellow River misadventure in Gwinnett County.



Now we have room to tangent on Gwinnett County itself. Gwinnett County is a suburban county of Atlanta in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. In 2020, the population was estimated to be 942,627, making it the second-most populous county in Georgia. Its county seat is Lawrenceville. The county is named for Button Gwinnett, one of the Georgia signatories of the Declaration of Independence.



We did a large tangent on Button Gwinnett with our post Georgia Natural Wonder #31 on St. Catherines Island. This was where he lived.



Gwinnett County is included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is located about 10 miles northeast of Atlanta's city limits.

History

Native American occupation

All British and French maps show the occupants of region around Gwinnett County to be Kataapa (Catawba Indians) until the American Revolution. In fact the territory controlled by Georgia Catawba during that era was far more extensive than that of the South Carolina Catawba, even though the Georgia Catawba have been completely forgotten by history books. The probable reason is that these Catawba joined the Creek Confederacy, and so within a generation, were probably speaking one of the Creek languages.


Catawba Indian.

A Shawnee town was established on the Chattahoochee River at some time in the 1700s, most likely after the French & Indian War. These Shawnees were probably from the North Carolina Mountains in the vicinity of Asheville. All Creek, Yuchi, Shawnee and Cherokee towns east of the 84th meridian were removed from the North Carolina Mountains in 1763. The location of the Shawnee town is now the city of Suwannee, GA.



The fact that a river in Gwinnett County is named after the Apalachee Indians, strongly suggests that they at one time lived in the region. The most likely time period was the 1700s. Once the Mountain Apalachee had joined the Creek Confederacy, their ethnic distinctions quickly disappeared. All many references and novels describe the Cherokees as the aboriginal inhabitants of Gwinnett County, the Cherokee Nation never had any territory within its boundaries. Cherokees only arrived west of the Chattahoochee River after the Treaty of 1793. Even after then, the Cherokee population was very sparse in the vicinity of Gwinnett County.



For hundreds of years preceding the permanent white settlements in what is now Gwinnett County, the Creek and Cherokee Indians occupied the land.  In 1789 and 1790 the Cherokee Indians ceded to the United States Government all lands north and east of a line running through Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolinas and north Georgia, including portions of Gwinnett. There are some  stone structures near Auburn which were a subject of great debate and controversy in the early 1990s, as a developer sought rezoning of the area for residential development.



There was a difference of opinion about the origin of the structures whether they were prehistoric (and thus related to Native American burial or ceremonial practices) or historic and related to the settlement of this area of Georgia in the early to mid-1800s.



A few of the stone structures can be seen near the marker. A 1995 study by archaeologist Thomas Gresham mapped 571 of the structures and said most likely that all piles, stacked and unstacked, on the tract are of historic period origin.



Two of the earliest white settlements were on the Apalachee River near Hog Mountain, and Old Town Suwanee, once a thriving Indian village on the Chattachoochee River, just north of the mouth of Suwanee Creek.  Most early families located in the area between Hog Mountain and Jug Tavern (now Winder), between the Mulberry and Apalachee Rivers. Another event that contributes in making Hog Mountain perhaps the most historic place in the county was the construction of Peachtree Road in 1813. This road was opened by the military authorities of the State and connected Fort Daniel and a fort built at the Standing Peachtree by Lieutenant George Gilmer.


Fort Peachtree.

In 1813, Fort Daniel was created during the War of 1812 in territory that would become Gwinnett County.



These forts were established during the settlement of the state's western territories because of frequent conflicts between white settlers and the region's Indians. The precise locations for many of these forts are no longer known, but many were situated along treaty boundaries negotiated with the Cherokee and Creek Indians.


Early written descriptions place the location of the "fort at Hog Mountain," as it was originally known, at the southern boundary of the Cherokee hunting grounds.

The county was created in 1818 by an act of the Georgia General Assembly, Gwinnett County was formed from parts of Jackson County (formerly part of Franklin County) and from lands gained through the cession of Creek Indian lands. Named for Button Gwinnett, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, the first county election was held at the home of Elisha Winn.



The first Superior Court was held in his barn.



Elisha Winn was born in Lunenburg County, Virginia in 1777. He moved to South Carolina then to Jackson County, Georgia where he served as a justice of the Inferior Court. He also served as justice of the Inferior Court in Gwinnett and as state representative (1830, 1833, 1837) and as state senator in 1826. Elisha Winn, who was violent politician in his day, once had a political quarrel with Luke Robinson on the troup and Clark question in Lawrenceville, and Philip Alston was present and was in sentiment with Mr. Winn.It terminated in a heated quarrel and Winn twisted Robinson's nose and Alston spat in his face.Robinson took it coolly, did not resent it, but said:"I am bitten by an old dog and slobbered on by the puppy."


Winn marker in Lawrenceville Cemetery.

The first Gwinnett County jail was built on the property, the jail was a small barn in the backyard, which was demolished in August 1933. County executions also took place at this location, the first being Jack Winn, an enslaved person owned by Elisa Winn, who was tried and hung on property. The county seat was later placed at Lawrenceville.



His son was Captain James Cochran Winn who was killed in the Mexican War in Goliad, Texas. We covered that in Georgia Natural Wonder #105 for James Fannin and Fannin County. There is a monument on the courthouse square, remembering the Fallen of 1836.


Another Courthouse marker celebrates Ezzard Charles the Heavyweight boxing champ.

There were two men at Goliad and unfortunately the monument is in error, with the Goliad massacre occurring in 1836 and not 1838.



The memorial is also for another 9 men with the Gwinnett Company of Mounted Volunteers, under the command of Capt. Hammond Garmany who
were slain by Creek Indians on June 9th 1836 in a Battle at Shepherd's Plantation in Stewart County.



Battle of Shepherd's Plantation marker.



The marker is up a small flight of steps from the road in Stewart County.



In 1831 a group of white men were tried and found guilty in Lawrenceville for violating Georgia law by living in the Cherokee Nation without a valid passport from the Governor. Two of the men appealed to the US Supreme Court in Worcester v. Georgia, which resulted in a ruling stating that only the federal government had jurisdiction over native lands, a decision which still stands.


Samuel Worcester, a missionary, defied Georgia through peaceful means to protest the state's handling of Cherokee lands.

Samuel Worcester, a native of Vermont, was a minister affiliated with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). In 1825 the board sent Worcester to join its Cherokee mission in Brainerd, Tennessee. Two years later the board ordered Worcester to the Cherokee national capital of New Echota, in Georgia. Upon his arrival Worcester began working with Elias Boudinot, the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, to translate the Bible and other materials into the Cherokee language. Over time Worcester became a close friend of the Cherokee leaders and often advised them about their political and legal rights under the Constitution and federal-Cherokee treaties.  He was arrested several times as a result. With a team of lawyers, Worcester filed a lawsuit against the state that went all the way to the Supreme Court, where he finally won his case.



The Chesser-Williams House is one of the oldest surviving homes in Gwinnett County, this house was built in the 1850s.



The house was located on property owned by Sue and Gerald Williams and moved from its original site six miles away.



Completed July 31, 1838, the Lawrenceville Female Seminary commenced operations on September 24, 1838 with Miss Martha Wells serving as principal.



The original building having been destroyed by fire about 1850, the present Greek Revival structure, erected between 1853 and 1855, was used until 1886.



In 1861, all three of Gwinnett County's representatives at the Georgia Constitutional Convention (1861) in Milledgeville voted against secession. Gwinnett sent three representatives; James P. Simmons, Richard D. Winn, and Thomas J. P. Hudson to the secession convention in Milledgeville. All three voted against secession (Gwinnett had a relatively low ratio of 1 slave to every 4 whites).


Gwinnett men protested secession.

During the war, Gwinnett raised 12 companies of infantry, five troops(companies) of cavalry, and one artillery battery. In late October 1864, Gwinnett saw raids and skirmishes in Trickum's Crossroads, Yellow River, Rockbridge, Lawrenceville, Jug Tavern, Rosebud. Towards the end of the war, Union troops foraged in Gwinnett County as part of the Atlanta Campaign.



Brig. Gen. Kenner Garrard detached Minty’s brigade to Lawrenceville to strip this area of horses and mules. Reaching Lawrenceville later in the day, Minty encountered a small force of cavalry which, after a sharp skirmish, he drove from the town. After rounding up all stock which had not been hidden at his approach, Minty moved to Yellow River (4 miles SW) and made camp. Next morning he marched to Decatur to rejoin Garrard.



William E. Simmons, was one of Gwinnett County’s foremost citizens. In 1861, he became an officer in the 16th Georgia Infantry Regiment, gallantly leading his men in over 20 battles during the War Between the States. In 1863, he rose to second in command of the 3rd Georgia Sharpshooters, an elite unit comprised of soldiers from Major General W. T. Wofford’s Brigade. He was captured in the Shenandoah Valley in August 1864 and spent eleven months at Fort Delaware Prison. After the War, he returned home to practice law. In 1941, T.A. Barker, the last surviving veteran in Gwinnett, died.



The Freedmen's Bureau was active in Gwinnett County during Reconstruction. In 1871 the courthouse in Lawrenceville was burned by the Ku Klux Klan in an attempt to avoid prosecution for their crimes, which included the shooting of a black election manager in Norcross.The first courthouse burned in 1872. This courthouse was built in 1885.



From the late 1860s to 1986, Freeman's Mill provided wheat flour, corn meal and feed meal for the county's residents and their animals. Its pond afforded nearby Alcova Baptist Church with a Baptismal, and the millhouse itself provided a gathering place for the surrounding rural community.


Freeman's Mill.

Railroads first came through in 1871 creating both towns and commerce. Known as the Atlanta and Richmond Air Line Railway (1870-1876) then the Atlanta and Charlotte Air Line Railway (1877-1894) then the Southern Railroad (1894-1990) and currently the Norfolk Southern Railway. A second railroad came through central Gwinnett in 1891 with the Georgia, Carolina, and Northern Railway (1886- 1901).



This line merged with the Seaboard Airline Railway (CSX since 1986) and operated the Loganville and Lawrenceville Railroad which ran between the two cities from 1898-1932. From 1879-1931 the Southern Railroad operated a passenger service between Atlanta and Toccoa, Georgia called the Airline Belle.

Roads

In the 1840s, a stagecoach line ran from the depot at Stone Mountain to Gainesville by way of Lawrenceville. Departing 7:00 a.m. and arriving 5:00 p.m. three days/week. Return trips the other three days.



The first road paved in Gwinnett in 1924 was one of the oldest; the Lawrenceville-Decatur road(US 29/GA 8) and by WW II there were 96 miles of paved highways in the county: Dekalb-Barrow(US 29/GA 8), Norcross-Buford(US 23/GA 13), Stone Mountain-Loganville(US 78/GA 10), Lawrenceville-Cumming(GA 20/Hwy 20), Norcross-Cumming(GA 141/Medlock Bridge rd), and Lawrenceville-Duluth(GA 120). Unpaved highways included parts of: Lawrenceville-Snellville(GA 124), Norcross-Cumming(GA 141), Hog Mountain-Barrow(GA 124), Buford-Cumming(GA 20), Lawrenceville-Loganville(GA 20), and Grayson-Snellville(GA 84). Besides these state-maintained roads, the county maintained another 1400 miles.


Lot more today.

Say Their Names

Late one April night, 110 years ago, about 200 masked men pulled Charlie Hale out of the Lawrenceville jail and dragged him onto the town square. At about 12:20 a.m., the crowd “strung him up to a telegraph pole and shot his body full of holes,” The Atlanta Constitution reported. No one was arrested in the aftermath of the April 8, 1911 lynching. Hale was a Black man in his mid-30s, with a wife and a small daughter.

Decades passed, then a century.

Many in Gwinnett County forgot the name Charlie Hale. Many more never heard it in the first place. In 1993, a Confederate monument was erected on the Square, near the site of the lynching. Condos were built. Restaurants opened and closed. Concerts were held.

The city had moved on.

But on the heels of a years-long national reckoning about race, Lawrenceville finally intends to acknowledge Hale — his death and his life. It’s part of a national effort to memorialize lynching victims in the country. “He never received justice,” said Curtis Clemons, vice chairman of the steering committee for the Remembrance project. “He hung from the town square and people took pictures celebrating his lynching.” Charles Hale’s life ended in downtown Lawrenceville on April 8, 1911, after a crowd of masked vigilantes stormed the county jail, pointed guns in the faces of the sheriff and deputies and took him in the dark of night. The mob took Hale — a Black man who had been accused of assaulting a white woman — to a light pole at the corner of Pike and Perry Streets on the Lawrenceville Square, tied a rope around his neck and lynched him, according to an account in The News Herald newspaper. After he died, Hale’s killers reportedly disappeared into the night, but his body was left hanging from the light pole with a photo being taken that weekend of a crowd of white men and children gathered around. The photo eventually ended up in the Georgia Archives.



Thomas Martin and William Sneal were lynched weeks apart in 1882, in a part of Gwinnett that is now Barrow County. Babb said Henry Campbell’s 1908 death is considered an execution, but may in fact be a lynching. Others are rumored, but not verified.

Maps

The northeastern part of Gwinnett County was removed in 1914 to form a part of the new Barrow County.




Details supersized on county realignment.


Present day Gwinnett County.

Barbara Mackle kidnapping

The 1968 kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle was the subject of an autobiographical book which was the basis of two television movies.

Events

On December 17, 1968, Mackle, then a 20-year-old Emory University student, was staying at the Rodeway Inn in Decatur, Georgia, United States with her mother. Mackle was sick with the Hong Kong flu, which had hit the student body population of Emory hard; her mother had driven to the Atlanta area to take care of her daughter and then drive her daughter back to the family home in Coral Gables, Florida for the Christmas break. A stranger, Gary Stephen Krist, knocked on the door, claiming to be with the police and wearing a policeman's cap, and told Mackle that Stewart Hunt Woodward had been in a traffic accident. (Woodward, to whom Mackle was later married, is usually described as Mackle's boyfriend or fiancé; but, in Mackle's written account, she calls him "a good friend".)



Once inside, Krist and his accomplice, Ruth Eisemann-Schier, disguised as a man, chloroformed, bound and gagged Mackle's mother and forced Barbara Jane Mackle at gunpoint into the back of their waiting car, informing her that she was being kidnapped. They drove her to a remote pine stand off South Berkeley Lake Road in Gwinnett County near Duluth and buried Mackle in a shallow trench inside a fiberglass-reinforced box. The box was outfitted with an air pump, a battery-powered lamp, water laced with sedatives, and food. Two plastic pipes provided Mackle with outside air.



Krist and Eisemann-Schier demanded a $500,000 ransom, $3.5 million in 2018 dollars, from Mackle's father, Robert Mackle, a wealthy Florida land developer. The first attempt at a ransom drop was disrupted when two policemen drove by. The kidnappers fled on foot, and the FBI found their car abandoned. Inside the car, the FBI found photographs of a man with a policeman's hat and the car registration in the name of George Deacon.

The second ransom drop was successful, but there was no word from the kidnappers. The FBI was able to trace George Deacon to the University of Miami, where they realized he built ventilated boxes for a living. Deacon's boss provided the name of Ruth Eisemann-Schier, who also worked at the University, as someone Deacon spent time with. The FBI was contacted by a local man in Georgia claiming he had just bought a small trailer from a man and found some odd paperwork inside. The FBI discovered letters addressed to George Deacon and Gary Krist, an escapee from California prison since 1966, and when the FBI compared the prints found in the car to the ones found in Krist's file, they realized Deacon was actually Krist. On December 20, Krist called and gave a switchboard operator of the FBI vague directions to Mackle's burial place. The FBI set up their base in Lawrenceville, Gwinnett’s county seat, and more than 100 agents spread out through the area in an attempt to find her, digging the ground with their hands and anything they could find to use. Mackle was found and rescued, suffering from dehydration but otherwise unharmed. She had spent more than three days buried underground.



Mackle was asked how she had remained so positive not only during the kidnapping but after, when she showed no ill effects from the ordeal. She claimed she would imagine spending Christmas with her family and never doubted she would be rescued.
Arrests and convictions of the perpetrators

Krist was soon arrested, hiding in a Florida swamp. Eisemann-Schier was arrested 79 days later in Norman, Oklahoma. (She has the distinction of being the first woman on the FBI's ten most wanted list.) Eisemann-Schier claims she left Miami because she and Krist became separated after the money drop and she was unable to get back to the car and thought Krist had abandoned her. She was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, paroled after serving four years, and deported to her native Honduras.

Krist was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1969, but was released on parole after 10 years. Krist received a pardon to allow him to attend medical school. He practiced medicine in Indiana before his license was revoked in 2003 for lying about a disciplinary action received during his residency.



In March 2006, Krist was arrested on a sailboat off the coast of Alabama with 14 kilograms (31 lb) of cocaine, reportedly worth about $1 million, and four illegal aliens. He was sentenced to five years and five months in prison and released in November 2010.

On August 27, 2012, in Mobile, Alabama, U.S. District Judge Callie Virginia Granade revoked Krist's supervised release for violation of his probation. He had left the country without permission, sailing to Cuba and South America on his sailboat. Judge Granade sentenced Krist to 40 months' imprisonment.

The books and movies

Mackle wrote a book (with The Miami Herald reporter Gene Miller) about her experience: 83 Hours Till Dawn, published in 1971. ABC aired the story in 1972 as part of its ABC Movie of the Week showcase under the title The Longest Night. However due to litigation surrounding the rights to the story,[citation needed] the movie was never aired again,[citation needed] even though the court decision was later overturned.[citation needed] The book was made into a second television movie, 83 Hours 'Til Dawn, in 1990. Krist also wrote a book, Life: The Man Who Kidnapped Barbara Jane Mackle, published in 1972. The 1973 exploitation film The Candy Snatchers is loosely based on the Mackle kidnapping. 



Larry Flint Shooting

On March 6, 1978, during a legal battle related to obscenity in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Flynt and his lawyer were shot on the sidewalk in Lawrenceville by Joseph Paul Franklin. The shooting left Flynt partially paralyzed with permanent spinal cord damage, and in need of a wheelchair.


(Left to right) Gwinnett County police officer G.E. Thompson and Ga. State Patrolman Huff at shooting scene of Larry Flynt in downtown Lawrenceville.

Flynt's injuries caused him constant, excruciating pain, and he was addicted to painkillers until multiple surgeries deadened the affected nerves.


Area where Flynt attorney Gene Reeves lay after being shot in downtown Lawrenceville, along with Flynt.

He also suffered a stroke caused by one of several drug overdoses on his analgesic medication. He recovered, but had pronunciation difficulties thereafter. Flynt's attorney was very seriously wounded.


Larry Flynt and his attorney Gene Reeves were walking up the sidewalk and were shot by a sniper in downtown Lawrenceville. Area approximately where third car is parked behind parking signs is where they fell after being hit. Blood is on the sidewalks.

Franklin, a militant white supremacist and serial killer, also shot Vernon Jordan; he targeted other Black and Jewish people in a killing spree from 1977–1980.


A year ago, this derelict hotel building in downtown Lawrenceville stood empty. It is believed the shot that wounded Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt came from this building. Today, the building is under lease by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were services are held. It has been cleaned up and renovated.

Violently opposed to 'miscegenation,' he confessed to the shootings many years later, claiming he was outraged by an interracial photo shoot in Hustler. About Flynt and a Hustler pictorial, he stated, "I saw that interracial couple ... having sex ... It just made me sick ... I threw the magazine down and thought, I'm gonna kill that guy." Flynt himself suspected the attack was part of a larger conspiracy involving ultra-right elements surrounding Congressman Larry McDonald also behind the Karen Silkwood case with ties to the Intelligence Community and that Franklin may have been subject to MKULTRA-style Mind Control.


In this photo, Flynt is carried into Emory Hospital by EMTs.

Franklin was never brought to trial for the attack on Flynt. Franklin was eventually charged in Missouri with eight unrelated counts of murder and sentenced to death. Flynt expressed his opposition to the death penalty and stated he did not want Franklin to be executed. Franklin was executed by lethal injection on November 20, 2013.

That's all Folks

Economy

Early in the county's history, gold mining was a minor industry. The Gwinnett Manufacturing Company, a cotton textile factory, operated in Lawrenceville in the 1850s through 1865, when it burned. The Bona Allen Company in Buford, Georgia produced saddles, harnesses and other leather goods from 1873 to 1981.


Bona Allen Company

AGCO is headquartered in Duluth.



American Megatrends is headquartered in unincorporated Gwinnett County near Norcross.



ASHRAE world headquarters is in Peachtree Corners.



Comcast Corporation, the American global telecommunications conglomerate and owner of Xfinity and NBCUniversal, has its Southeast Headquarters in Peachtree Corners.

Canon has its southeast region headquarters in Norcross.

Datapath, Inc., a firm specializing in secure satellite communications and wireless communications systems, is headquartered in unincorporated Gwinnett, near Duluth.



Fortune 500 companies CarMax and Mass Mutual as well as Honeywell, Sprint Corporation, Siemens Industry Automation, Fleetcor, ACI Worldwide, and CMD Group are among the businesses in Peachtree Corners.

Hapag-Lloyd’s North American Headquarters is in Peachtree Corners.

The Harlem Globetrotters are headquartered in Peachtree Corners.



Primerica is headquartered in unincorporated Gwinnett County, near Duluth.



Scientific Atlanta in Lawrenceville.



United States Tennis Association (USTA)‘s headquarters for the Southern Section is in Peachtree Corners.

Waffle House is headquartered in unincorporated Gwinnett County, near Norcross.



Yerkes National Primate Research Center, the CDC's primate research center located on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, maintains its high security Yerkes Field Station, which houses most of its primates, near Lawrenceville.



Cities

Auburn/Carl
Lost to Barrow County in 1914.

Berkely Lake
Incorporated in 1956, Berkely Lake is the newest and smallest city in Gwinnett. Located between Norcross and Duluth, this city was formed to provide services to the community around the man-made Lake Berkely.



Berkshire
Post Office 1850-1893.

Bermuda
West of Rockbridge and Anniston roads. Post Office 1893-1903. (1904, 1920)

Braden
Lawrenceville Hwy near Harmony Grove Church Rd. Possibly a station on the Seaboard Air Line known as Caldwell Station. (1920)

Buford

Buford was named after Algernon Sidney Buford, who at the time was president of the Atlanta and Richmond Air-Line Railway. GNW #181

Buzzard's Roost
Lawrenceville Hwy near Paden Drive.

Cains
Post Office 1838-1901. Lost to Barrow County in 1914. Brasleton Hwy(124) and Mt Moriah Rd. (1920 map shows it well inside Gwinnett)

Caleb
South of Snellville near Lenora Church and Centerville-Rosebud Roads. Post Office 1892-1903. (1904 - Lawrenceville P.O.)

Centerville
Located south of Snellville around the intersection of Hwy 124 and Centerville-Rosebud Rd. At one time it was called "Sneezer". Post Office 1879-1903. (1904 - Lawrenceville P.O.)

Chinquapin Grove
See Dacula

Choice's Store
Rockbridge and Lawrenceville Hwy. Post Office as early as 1824 and appears on the Sherman's Atlanta Campaign map.

Craig
A stop three miles SW of Lawrenceville on the Seaboard RR. (1904 - Lawrenceville P.O., 1920)

Cruse
Along the Southern RR between Norcross and the nearest stop Duluth. (1920)

Dacula
Incorporated since 1905, Dacula started near the town of Chinquapin Grove (where Dacula Elementary now stands). Built on the Seaboard Airline Railway, Dacula's station operated until the 1950s. The town was originally named Hoke or Hokeville but this was short-lived and the first Postmaster created the name Dacula from an odd combination of letters from Decatur and Atlanta. The Chinquapin Grove Post Office operated from 1850-1879 and as Dacula since 1893.



Dillard's Crossroads
Renamed Carl in 1906.

Duluth
Originally named Howell's Cross Roads for Evan Howell who ran a cotton gin on the Chattahoochee, it was renamed in 1871 to Duluth after the city in Minnesota when the railroad was built. Post Office since 1871. [/url]GNW #181



Fence
At Fence Road and Auburn Road. (1904 - Auburn P.O.)

Five Forks
Where Dogwood, River, and Oak roads meet Five Forks-Trickum Road.

Ghent
Shown on the map in the area of Lilburn-Stone Mtn Rd and Old Tucker Rd. (1920)

Gloster
Located near Bethesda Methodist Church, it was a station on the Seaboard Railroad and named for a company official. A Post Office operated here from 1893 to 1946. (1904)

Goddess
Five Forks-Trickum Rd and Killian Hill? School there in 1904. (1920)

Grapevine
Around Braselton Hwy(124) and Mineral Springs Rd west of Cains. (1920)

Grayson
Founded in 1879 as "Trip" was, in 1907, officially changed to Grayson. Pretty good in football.

Harbins
Post Office 1893-1901.

Hog Mountain
One of the oldest communities in Gwinnett. Fort Daniel was built here during the War of 1812 to protect the frontier from indians. The road constructed from here to Fort Standing Peachtree on the Chattahoochee followed the ridge line and is still known as Peachtree Road. Stagecoaches stopped here on the way from Monticello to Gainesville and Stone Mountain to Gainesville.

Howell's Crossing/Crossroads
See Duluth.

Huff
Near Lawrenceville-Suwanee Rd and McKendree Church Rd. (1920)

Hush
On the 1920 map near Collins Hill Park. (1920)

Lawrenceville
The county seat was established in 1820 and named for Capt. James Lawrence (1781-1813), a naval commander of the frigate Chesapeake during the War of 1812.


Buried at Trinity Church Manhattan.


Lawrence, a native of New Jersey, is probably best known today for his dying command, "Don't give up the ship!"

Lawrenceville was incorporated by an act of the Georgia General Assembly on December 15, 1821. This makes Lawrenceville the second oldest city in the metropolitan Atlanta area.



The four streets that form the square around the courthouse are named for naval hero Commodore Perry, explorer Zebulon Pike; soldier of the War of 1812, George Croghan; and congressman Augustin Clayton.



The two most famous people born in Lawrenceville gained their fame elsewhere. Charles Henry Smith, born in 1826, left as a young man and lived most of his life in other Georgia towns. During the Civil War he wrote humorous pieces for Atlanta newspapers under the name Bill Arp. He has been described as the South's most popular writer of the late 19th century, though he is not much read today.




Ezzard Charles, born in 1921, grew up in Cincinnati, where opportunities for African-Americans were far better at the time than in the Deep South. He eventually became the World Heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Joe Louis by unanimous decision on September 27, 1950.



Lilburn
Begun as a stop on the Seaboard Airline in 1890, the area called McDaniel was renamed Lilburn in honor of the general superintendent of the railroad, Lilburn Trigg Myers and incorporated in 1910. Post Office since 1893.


Riding down Lawrenceville Highway several years back and stumbled upon this.

The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Atlanta, Georgia is a traditional Hindu mandir, or place of worship, inaugurated on 26 August 2007 by the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, a denomination of the Swaminarayan branch of Hinduism headed by Mahant Swami Maharaj.





The mandir located in the Lilburn suburb of Atlanta, was constructed in accordance with ancient Hindu architectural scriptures, and is the largest mandir of its kind outside of India.



Luxomni
Meaning "light for all", Luxomni was a stop on the Seaboard Airline just north of Lilburn near the current intersection of Luxomni Rd and Killian Hill Rd. Post Office since 1893. (1904)

Meadow
Duluth Hwy(120) near Bunten Rd.

Mountain Park (Trickum)
Where Rockbridge Road crosses the Old Stone Mountain Road (now Five Forks-Trickum Rd). Also known as Possum Corner in the mid-20th century for the nearby Possum Lake (now Lake Lucerne). Trickum was the scene of a cavalry raid in 1864. It also has the Imperial Chinese Garden - the best Chinese restaurant in Gwinnett county.

Norcross
Was formed as city in 1870 with the coming of the Southern Railroad. Quite a number of baseball players have come from Norcross. Post Office since 1871. [url=https://www.hairofthedawg.net/thread-280.html]GNW #181



Oakland
Old Norcross Rd (Norcross-Lawrenceville Rd) and Oakland Rd.

Old Field
Old Peachtree Rd and Lawrenceville-Suwanee Rd.

Orient
North of Snellville around the Oak Road and Highpoint Road intersection. (1920)

Pinkneyville
One of the oldest communities and militia districts in the county, Pinkneyville was centered around the crossroads of the old Peachtree Road and Medlock Road. Near this site was an inn and stagecoach stop. With the coming of the railroad in 1870, commerce moved to the new town of Norcross and Pinckneyville slowly faded away.

Pittman
A stop on the Southern RR between Norcross and Duluth. (1904 - Norcross P.O.)

Possum Corner
See Mountain Park.

Rabbit Hill
Old Peachtree Rd and Hurricane Shoals Rd. NW of Dacula.

Rest Haven
Incorporated in 1938, Rest Haven is the smallest town in Gwinnett with a population of about 150.

Rosebud
Located at the intersection of Centerville and Rosebud roads. Post Office 1897-1905 (1904 - Loganville P.O.)

Rockbridge
Post Office 1839-1865. Thomas McGuire was Postmaster so it was likely in the vicinity of Yellow River and Rockbridge/Hwy124.

Shadow Brook
A stop on the Southern RR between Suwanee and Sugar Hill. (1920)

Sneezer
See Centerville

Snellville
A city since 1923, Snellville was originally known as New London by 1879 and Snellville since 1885 when the Post Office opened. (1904 - Lawrenceville P.O.)



Sugar Hill
Incorporated in 1939 for 1¼ miles on either side of the Southern Railroad tracks and the same distance south of Buford. GNW #181

Suwanee
Another railroad town dating back to 1871. The community was formed near an older indian village known as Suwannee Old Town and has had a Post Office since 1838. Incorporated as a city in 1949. GNW #181

Sweetwater
On Pleasant Hill Road near Lawrenceville Hwy. Inferior Court minutes reference a bridge over the creek in 1822 (Hwy 29 near Ronald Reagan Pkwy). Post Office 1839-1903.

Trickum
See Mountain Park

Trip
See Grayson

Warsaw
Post Office established 1832 but later moved across the river to Forsyth County in the area of State Bridge and Medlock Bridge roads. Stagecoaches stopped here on the way to New Echota.

Webbville
Old Snellville Hwy and Webb Gin House Road. (1920)

Winn
Three miles SW of Lawrenceville on US29. (1904 - Lawrenceville P.O.)

Winn's Spur
A stop on the Seaboard Air Line just west of Craig. (1920)

Yellow River
Post Office 1846-1903. Building still stands on Five Forks-Trickum Road.

Notable people

David Andrews, NFL football player with the New England Patriots.



Alvin Kamara, NFL running back with the New Orleans Saints.
   


Maya Moore, Women's Basketball Player with the Minnesota Lynx.


   
Elijah Bryant (born 1995), basketball player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League and on May 13, 2021, Bryant signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. Bryant won an NBA championship when the Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns in 6 games of the 2021 NBA Finals.


   
Sam Flint (1882 – 1980), actor.


   
Chandler Massey, actor (Days of Our Lives); received the 2012, 2013, and 2014 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series. In 2012, Massey became the first actor ever to receive a Daytime Emmy Award for playing a gay character.


3 Emmy's for Luke Horton.
   
James Ramsey, Major League Baseball player with the Los Angeles Dodgers.


Now a coach with Tech.

Trey Thompkins, UGA basketball player formerly with Los Angeles Clippers.


   
Brice Butler, NFL wide receiver with the Dallas Cowboys.


   
Jodie Meeks, NBA shooting guard with the Washington Wizards.


   
Rittz, musician.


   
Migos, hip hop group.



OK we have done our tangent on Gwinnett County, and we move downstream on the Yellow River with our next post. Today's GNW Gals are all grinning at the net.


Grinning at Tennis net.


Grinning at Beach Volleyball net. I know I would be grinning in that last shot.