(Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in the March issue of the Snellville Historical Society newsletter. What we like about it is that, through research, the author has cleared up a misconception of how the city got its name. Attaboy Jim!—eeb)
By Jim Cofer, president, Snellville Historical Society | How did Snellville get its name? This is a question that has been asked and debated many times over the past century or so.
Local folklore offers several possibilities, such as:
- Tom Snell won naming rights in a coin flip with James Sawyer.
- Snell and Sawyer had considered calling it “New London,” though there is no documentary evidence of this. However, Snell’s mother insisted from London that it bear the family name.
- The most popular tale is that Sawyer was out of town the day the postal inspector came to view the proposed site, so Snell took the opportunity to choose the name. (The city itself was not incorporated until 1923.)
A recent visit to the National Archives Center (in Morrow) turned up numerous postal records in southern Gwinnett, along with a copy of the original application shown here to establish a post office at “The Crossroads” we call Snellville.
Additionally, the “Tom Snell Letters” presented by David and Chris Snell at the April, 2015 meeting of the Snellville Historical Society showed that one of these letters was written on April 24, 1881 on Snell and Sawyer store letterhead with the address of Snellville, Ga. clearly engraved on it, which is some three years before the post office site was requested.
So, who named Snellville? It appears almost surely that it was a joint and amicable decision by Tom Snell and James Sawyer.
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