Historic Sites in Barrow County

The history of Barrow County

Barrow County was created by an act of July 7, 1914, from parts of Gwinnett, Jackson and Walton counties, on the Piedmont plateau between Atlanta and Athens. It is named for David Crenshaw Barrow, the longtime chancellor of the University of Georgia, who led the university from 1906 to 1925 and was known to generations of students as "Uncle Dave." The county seat is Winder, a community originally known as Jug Tavern that was incorporated by the General Assembly in 1893. Before white settlement, both Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee people lived in and traveled through the area, and a Native American settlement known as Snodon stood nearby. As settlers pushed onto the frontier, they built a log blockhouse around 1792 for protection during conflicts with the Muscogee and Cherokee; that structure survives as the centerpiece of Fort Yargo State Park. Winder was home to Richard B. Russell Jr., who served nearly four decades in the U.S. Senate, chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee and sat on the Warren Commission. In recent decades the county has changed from a largely rural farming area into a growing suburban community.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiahistory.com