Gordon County Place Names

How To Use This Blog

This Blog is about the origin of place names in Gordon County, Georgia, along with a few nearby areas, such as Adairsville or Carters Lake.   On the right side, in the menu, are categories named A – Z.  By clicking on a letter, you can go to all the place names in the county that start with that letter, in alphabetical order.  If you have new, different or just interesting information about a place, please write that in a comment.  In some cases, I have been unable to find anything about a place that once existed in this county.  I am particularly interested in finding any information about these places.  Eventually, I plan to rewrite entries to incorporate additional facts and stories.  I make no claims to the accuracy of all the stories I have found.  Feel free to let me know if something is wrong.  Also, if you know of a place that should be included, let me know that as well.  I do try to put sources for what I have written and would like to know the sources of any additional material that you may have so that I can add that information to the entry on a particular place.

Introduction

The idea for this Blog developed from a short booklet published by Calhoun High School students in 1990.  This booklet, Place Names in Gordon County, was researched and compiled by students who were on the staff of the school magazine, Southwind.  The names of those students who worked on the original project are listed at the end of this introduction.

When we began this booklet in 1990, I thought that finding the origin of most place names would be relatively simple.  I was wrong.  It became apparent that the study of place names (toponymy for the truly serious – or seriously nuts) was not a science.   While explanations or stories exist for most place names, corroboration does not.  For example, most sources say that Calhoun is named for John C. Calhoun, and I am sure that that is correct, but so far I have not found anything that tells how and why that name was chosen.  Other places, like Plainville, named after a town in Connecticut, or Curryville, named after a Rome pharmacist, have reasonable stories, but each source seems to quote the other and ultimately there is no real verification of the story.  Other places, like Sugar Valley, have several different stories for the name, all of which sound plausible and none of which have any corroboration.  Indian names are also problematical since the names were originally transcribed phonetically, and various authorities may list different words for the origin or have different translations for the same word.  For these and other reasons most explanations or stories about the origin of a particular place name must be qualified; it is always possible, sometimes probable, that a logical or accepted explanation is just wrong.

Most place names fall into one of several broad categories.  Many place names in Gordon County come from Cherokee names.  A few, in fact, may come from an earlier group, the Coosa, who were the forbears of the Creek Nation and whose language was from the Muskogean family, a language quite different from Cherokee.  Examples of possibly Muskogean names are Coosawattee and Conasauga.  “Coosawattee” has in it the name of the tribe that DeSoto met on his journey, the Coosa, and some scholars think that “Coosawattee” was a Cherokee adapatation of a Mucogean term that loosely translated as “old place of the Creeks (Coosa).”  Similarly “Conasauga” seems to come from a Muscogean term, gansagi, the meaning of which is unknown.  See the entries on Coosawattee , Conasauga and Gansagi for more information.

Two present-day place names that are Cherokee are Oostanaula and Oothcaloga.  The endings on both words are now pronounced with either an “uh” or “ah” sound with a secondary accent.  Originally, both words ended with a short “i” sound, like the “I” in “pit” which was unaccented.  The Cherokee terms would have been pronounced as “Oostanally” and “Oothcalogy” with a hard “g.”  See the entries on these two names for more information.

Another way that the Cherokee language shows up in present place names is through translation.  Pine Log, Snake Creek, Rock Creek, Horn Mountain, Talking Rock, possibly Red Bud and Sugar Valley all seem to be translations of Cherokee terms.  As settlers moved in to an area, they learned the Cherokee names for various rivers, streams, mountains, and other places.  Often the Cherokee terms were difficult to understand, but the translations made sense and so these translations were adopted as names.  Of course, most of these names are descriptive and could simply be the name settlers gave to a location.  In general, if a descriptive name has been in use since the Civil War or earlier, there is a good chance that it is from a Cherokee word.

One variation on the idea of translations is what might best be called a corruption,  Some Cherokee names could sound like English words so that an English name developed from an unrelated Cherokee name.  Hal Brinkley suggests that the “Sugar” in Sugar Valley was a sound alike for the Cherokee name “Su A Ga.”  Brinkley also theorizes that Polecat Creek was originally Cat Creek (for a Cherokee named Cat.)  He then goes a step further and says that Polecat came about after the Removal as a negative term of reference to the Cherokee who had lived there.  Brinkley has a number of such ideas for which he gives no source.  I suspect that names did come about in ways Brinkley suggests, but there is not any sure way to determine which names are actually corruptions.

Some names in Gordon County sound as if they might be Cherokee in origin but are not.  Some people think that Resaca comes from the Indians, but it is, in fact, Spanish, like Sonoraville.  Decora sounds as if it might be an attempt at pronouncing a Cherokee term, but it is more likely a Latin form.

Many place names are descriptive.  Hill City, Pine Chapel, Fairmount, Blue Springs and more get their name from some physical feature in the area.  Sugar Valley, Rosedale and Red Bud may be such names as well.  It is difficult to know if a descriptive name came from white settlers or from the Cherokee.

A number of places are named for people, either in honor of someone that people in an area admired or for a family that settled in an area.  Calhoun, Gordon County and Audubon are named in honor of people who have almost nothing to do with this area.  Lewis’s Corner, Ralston’s Corner, Reeve’s Station, Scottsville, McDaniels, and Baugh Mountain are all named for specific people or families.  Even Mt. Alto in Calhoun is named for a local resident.

Sometimes, settlers or residents in an area will name the place for some other location of importance to them.  Fairmount is a descriptive name, but the town is also named for a place in present-day West Virginia.  Plainville comes from a town in Connecticut.  The Belmont area of Calhoun is named for an estate in Pennsylvania.  Resaca and Sonoraville are named for places in Mexico.  Oakman is probably named for an unknown man who had a woodlot there while Nickelsville may, in a roundabout manner, be named for a man who bought rabbits.

Often a church in a particular area will become the name for a small community.  Damascus and Antioch are Baptist Churches whose Biblically-inspired names have become associated with general areas.  Damascus appears on maps.  I contrast, names like Union Grove, Liberty and others suggest a quality of the founding congrgation.

Finally, there are names that do not fit into easily identifiable categories.  Ranger, Curryville, Decora, Villanow, Soapstick and Cash all have unique stories that are not otherwise classifiable.

One final idea about names is of some interest.  When students in 1990 first compiled a list of Gordon County place names, they and I were surprised at the number of names we found.  We listed approximately eighty names in our booklet.  My master list for this Blog approaches 150 names.  I have used old maps and some specialized lists in compiling this group of names.  Certainly, a reasonable question is, “Why does a small county have so many names?”  There are three answers to this question.  First, many places acquire more than one name over time.  Today’s Scottsville was yesterday’s Springtown.  Second, the railroads originally had more stops than they do today.  So places like Reeves, McDaniels, Skelley’s Station, and more exist as names, even though their original purpose no longer exists.  Third, as mail delivery developed, postal drops proliferated.  Oftentimes, a store or even a home would become a mail drop and later a post office.  Each one received a name, and those names were recorded.  As mail service developed and more people had cars, the need for so many post offices declined.  However, the earlier names continued to exist in one form or another.  I cannot be sure that I have listed every place that served as a post office in Gordon County, but I have tried to find them all.

All of the names in Gordon County came from people who lived here. Some were settlers who had crossed the mountains and found a place to stay.  Others were here only a short time, and then began to think about what might be over that next ridge to the west.  But, with all of these people, we have at least a tenuous relationship.  We have all lived in this relatively small area that is now called Gordon County.  And all of us have seen the first rise of the Appalachians to the east and the long ridge of Horn Mountain to the west.  Whether aware of it or not, we have all lived in the Great Valley that runs hundreds of miles north and east to Virginia, and we have all seen the same streams and rivers, felt the heat of summer, and seen the dogwood, red bud, and trillium in the spring.  Though much of this area has changed unbelievably since the Coosa and the Cherokee lived here, even they might recognize some places and hear some names that would be familiar.  The history of all who came before is still a part of us who are here today.

Sources

BL – Bob Linn — My initials mean that I’m just speculating without a source.

CP – Cherokee Planters in Georgia, 1832-1838 by Don L. Shadborn – This book from 1990 has much information from primary source material on Cherokee farmers who lived in this area.

CT – The Calhoun Times – In 1979, Ted Smith did two articles on place names for The Calhoun Times.  Sources were not listed.

CVI – Carl Vinson Institute – This web site has a feature that allows part of the UGA historic map collection to be accessed by county.  It is possible to see how early a place name appears in a given county.  It also allows the reader to find place names that no longer exist.  When I indicate that a certain place appears on a map in a certain year, I am referring to the maps that can be referenced on this site.

GPN – Georgia Place Names ­by Kenneth Krakow – Published in the three editions, the last of which is now posted on-line, Krakow’s book is considered the best overall reference on Georgia place names.

HGC – History of Gordon County by Lulie Pitts – Lulie Pitts identified the origin of some place names in her 1933 history.  She did not give sources but did have access to earlier information than anyone today.

 HGa – How Georgia Got Her Names – This is a small unsourced reference book that covers the entire state.  A surprisingly large number of places in Gordon County are listed.  However, in some instances this work has proved to be inaccurate, so it may be inaccurate in other instances as well.

OR – Union Army map in Official Records of the War of the Rebellion – This interesting source was supposedly  used by Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign.  The map has some errors but is an accurate source for whether a place name existed at the time of the Civil War.  It also lists families who lived in a particular area and so can demonstrate that a family is associated with a place name.

MC – Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney – This work was first published as the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1891.  Mooney interviewed many older Cherokees in both Oklahoma and North Carolina.  His work is one of the standard sources on Cherokee culture.  Mooney’s information on names and meanings is highly respected and generally more reliable than other sources.

PG – Place Names of Georgia by John H. Goff – This is a collection of essays by John H. Goff who was probably the most scholarly of researchers.  This book deals only with place names that Goff found interesting enough to write about.  Consequently, only a few Gordon County places appear in it.

PT – Past Times: Birth & Exile of the Cherokee Nation – This tabloid-sized publication by the News Publishing Company of Rome, Georgia (1990) has an article on Cherokee place names.

 

Students Who Worked on the Original Place Names in Gordon County

Kim Avery                                             Michael Payne

Chris Griffin                                          Jay Ralston

John Grisham                                      Shane Shellhorse

India Henderson                                Angela Shelton

Allyson Hughes                                  Stephanie Sheriff

Ben Jastram                                         Kahle Smith

Clayton Jones                                      Kay Walraven

Ricky McAfee                                       Cecilia Washington

Sally Mance                                           Jay Webb

B. J. Meadows                                       Ginger Woody