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Duluth was originally Cherokee territory. When Duluth was established in the early 19th century, it was primarily forested land occupied by tribespeople. An Indian trail, called Old Peachtree Road by the settlers, was extended through the area during the War of 1812 to connect Fort Peachtree in present-day Atlanta with Fort Daniel near present-day Dacula. When Gwinnett County was established in 1818, white settlement of the area accelerated.

Cotton merchant Evan Howell constructed a road connecting his cotton gin at the Chattahoochee River with Old Peachtree Road, creating Howell’s Cross Roads. The settlement later became known as “Howell’s Crossing”. Howell was the grandfather of Atlanta Mayor Evan P. Howell and great-grandfather of Atlanta Constitution publisher Clark Howell.

Howell’s Crossing was renamed “Duluth” in 1871 after Congress funded a north-south railroad line into the community. It was named after the city of Duluth, Minnesota. The Midwestern city had gotten its own railroad connection not long before, which had prompted Rep. J. Proctor Knott, a Kentucky Democrat, to make a speech in Congress mocking the project as wasteful. That speech drew national attention. According to contemporary reports, Evan P. Howell himself jokingly suggested the name change in a speech about the arrival of railroad service in the Georgia town. (Duluth, Minnesota, is named for Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut (1636-1710), a French captain and explorer of the upper Midwest, who negotiated peace between the Chippewa and the Sioux nation.)