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City of Winterville
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History of Winterville
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Our town has a long and rich history. Land grants in the late 1700s brought settlers to what is now the Winterville area. With the building
of Georgia's first railroad, housing began to cluster around Six-Mile-Station, a wood-and-water stop six miles east of
Athens, on the Oglethorpe-Clarke County line in the 1840s. The railroad attracted three brothers, surnamed Winter, from Germany.
Soon after, the rail stop became known as Winter's Station, and in 1866, the Oglethorpe Post Office was designated as
Winterville.
In
1904, the city of Winterville was incorporated, and in 1906, the Oglethorpe County portion of the town was transferred to
Clarke County. Today, Winterville retains its charter and is still a municipality, the only one entirely located within the
city/county of the unified Athens-Clarke County.
Many of Winterville's Victorian homes were
built in the 1870s and 1880s. The 1920s was another peak time of economic activity in Winterville. Newspaper accounts at that
time list five general stores, a drug store, a bank, two garages, two cotton gins, two grist mills, and 510 residents.
In the past, Winterville was home to some of the best schools in the area. A championship basketball team
at the high school and many other school activities served as a focal point and a boost for community spirit. However, in
1956, after the high school was consolidated with the City of Athens school system, community spirit plummeted. Today, several
buildings from the old campus are still standing, including the auditorium.
In 1970, the idea
of an annual festival in Winterville was conceived by citizens, including Wesley Whitehead, Joan Biles, and Sybil Deacon,
as a means of revitalizing community spirit and reversing the decay prevalent in the city buildings such as the historic train
depot. The marigold was adopted as the town's official symbol in 1971. It was chosen because of its hardiness, versatility,
and vigor, and because it is a symbol of friendship all over the world.
The Marigold Festival,
held from 1971 through 2002, was discontinued in 2003. Funds from Marigold Festivals were used to beautify and improve the
community. Past festivals funded renovations of several buildings, including the depot, furnished the building for the Winterville
branch of the Athens Regional Library, built a playscape in the park, plus many other projects.
For more information
about the city of Winterville, contact City Hall: winterville@charter.net.
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Early HistoryThe
building of homes in what was to become Clarke County was delayed, as the 18th century neared its end, by the protests of
many Indians that their leaders had signed away Indian lands without authorization. The treaties that had been signed extended
only to the Oconee River. In a few year's time, however, part of America's westward movement gradually pushed from
the Beaverdam Creek section of Oglethorpe County to the headwaters of Beaverdam (now the Winterville area), on to Trail Creek
(now the airport-quarry area), to the east edge of the river, and then finally across into Athens.
Title to land
in Clarke County in and surrounding Winterville appears to have passed in part to the following early settlers:
1.
John Dardin and Stephen Heard (grant) to Isaer (Isaiah) Hales (sometimes Hailes) around 1800, to Thomson Pittard in 1816;
adjacent property owners in 1816 included Needham Sorrel, James Hale, John Hales, John Simmons (?), and Jacob Born (Bowen?).
Isaiah Hales was a Baptist minister who led 30 members of Beaverdam Baptist Church to constitute Trail Creek church, the first
Baptist church in Clarke County but now extinct. It was located two or three miles from the Hales/Pittard property. A two-room
house build in 1802 stood until a few years ago next to the home (865 Athens Road) now occupied (in 1971) by Virginia Williams,
great-great-grandaughter of Thomson Pittard.
2. Needham and Josiah Norris, et al (grant 1798) to Humphrey Pittard,
1828; sold recently by his grandsons to Thomas J. Harrell and son. In an enclosure on the place are buried Sally Norris (1776
- 1864) Pittard, and some of their descendants. In 1859 Sarah Pittard deeded to the interdenominational Line Church the land
on which the Winterville Methodist Church stands today.
3. Count d'Estaing (grant) to Madame Gouvain (in exchange
for her West Indies holdings), to William F. Matthews, to others, to H.e. Wood. The Murrelle home on Spring Valley Road is
on William Matthews land that extended to Hull.
An undated marker, placed by the DAR, identifies the grave of Revolutionary
soldier, Hiram Howard, a son of Priscilla Farrar Howard and a brother of Abel Howard, of Oglethorpe County. Hiram probably
died about 1822. The grave is on a curve of Suddeth Street and is well kept by the J. R. Dawsons, with a clump of day lilies
growing around it. The place is part of the land bought by William Alexander Nabers (1798 - 1887) from Thomson Pittard in
1835. Mrs. Dawson and Mrs. David (Zuma Nabers) Johnson are two of the descendants of William Alexander and Sara Hancock Cheatham
Nabers who are living (at time of this article) on parts of the old home place. A son of W.A. and Sara Nabers was Jacob Anthony
Nabers, M.D. (1854 - 1905).
Other names that appear in early accounts are Barnett, Bolton, Eberhart, England, Hutchenson,
Noell, Smith, Strong, and Whitehead (the last-named being a Baptist couple with the good Methodist.
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Winterville's Town Square
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Land for Winterville's town square was donated by
an early settler, Sarah Hart Pittard in the 1800s.
Why not take a
walking tour of Winterville's beautiful town square and Church Street?
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Inez Edwards' first
store was located in front of the public works/volunteer fire department building near the square.
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Members of the Pittard family
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