Duluth, GA news and local guide

Duluth was originally Cherokee land, mostly forest when settlement began in the early 19th century. During the War of 1812 a Native trail the settlers called Old Peachtree Road was extended through the area to link Fort Peachtree, in present Atlanta, with Fort Daniel near present Dacula. White settlement sped up after Gwinnett County was created in 1818. The cotton merchant Evan Howell built a road from his cotton gin on the Chattahoochee River to Old Peachtree Road, and the junction became Howell's Cross Roads, later Howell's Crossing. Howell was the grandfather of Atlanta Mayor Evan P. Howell and great-grandfather of the Atlanta Constitution publisher Clark Howell.

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Howell's Crossing was renamed Duluth in 1871, after Congress funded a north-south railroad line into the town. The name borrowed that of Duluth, Minnesota, which had recently gotten its own railroad, prompting Representative J. Proctor Knott of Kentucky to give a widely noticed speech in Congress mocking the project as wasteful. According to contemporary reports, Evan P. Howell jokingly suggested the new name in a speech celebrating the railroad's arrival. Duluth, Minnesota, was itself named for the French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut. The railroad spurred the town's economy, and a schoolhouse was built in 1871. Sources Wikipedia: Duluth, Georgia