On your next woodsy hike through the Simpsonwood retreat, be sure to tip your walking stick in appreciation to a woman who loved those same soaring hardwoods, gentle evergreens and flowing river waters so much so many years ago that she made a plan to preserve it for all of us to enjoy today. Ludie Simpson was born in Norcross on December 10, 1887, and became a teacher with the Atlanta and the Gwinnett County school systems until her retirement in 1957. Ludie loved to travel the world, but upon her retirement Ludie returned to live in a home she inherited along North Peachtree Street in the …

Editor's Note: This is the second part of a series on the history of the nearby Simpsonwood Retreat. When walking the trail of Simpsonwood, my neighbor and fellow Patch writer Julie Foster, spotted some scrap metal off the beaten path in an interesting formation.  Could it be just a pile of discarded trash?  Her curiosity got the best of her and she emailed her favorite local historian with her ponderings and then quickly goggled this question, “Are there still relics of moon shine stills to be found in the back woods of rural or urban America?” “Awesome,” is what I told her (me being her …

Step off the pavement and onto the wooded two-mile trail in the Simpsonwood Retreat and you literally walk right into a land parcel that has seen some of the earliest history of North Georgia. Thanks to the request of Miss Ludie Simpson, the most recent of the Simpson family to own the land, folks will forever enjoy nature in its preserved state. First an Indian trading post, the retreat has seen decades of change but, luckily, remains mostly untouched by developers.  Over the next weeks, in a series of articles, some of the secrets hidden deep in the woods will be revealed. Here’s hoping …

Norcross is a railroad town sprung up at the last depot stop of the Airline Belle. Its history weaves itself around trains and tracks like kudzu on a telephone pole. Although the rumble and the whistle add a certain eclectic ambiance, a barreling iron horse carries along with the box car and flatbeds a certain level of danger.  One hundred years ago folks made their way across the tracks on foot, horseback, wagon or automobile along dirt paths that the rails cut through without the safety of cross bucks and flashing signal lights. Local lore recalls that men who lived in homes near the tracks…

Any discussion on the history of Norcross must begin, “Norcross is a railroad town.” As with so many towns in the South, Norcross was begun as part of post-Civil War reconstruction. Earnest work on the Richmond-Danville line began in 1868 from the terminus which was then located in an area now known as Little Five Points. When the 20 miles of track was lain northward and Jonathan Thrasher purchased the 140 odd acres surrounding its end, a town was born.  But work on the rails was not instantaneous or completed easily. The long stretch of rails, now running all the way to Washington, D.C., …

Editor's note: Sally Toole is co-producer and guide on the Norcross Ghost Tour, a spooky walk in Historic Norcross. Upcoming tours take place tonight, Sat. Oct. 22, and Oct. 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31. The tours leave from Thrasher Park at 7, 8 and 9 p.m.  What gets a nice lady like me into a kooky thing like a ghost tour? Uncanny coincidence is my only explanation. Although I have encountered some crazy, often aggravating, things, I can honestly say that producing a ghost tour is, well, never boring! Odd occurrences began for me well before becoming acquainted with any of the fine folks I now …

“Are there really ghosts in Norcross?” Is the number one question asked by guests of the Norcross Ghost Tour. The number two question?  “Have you seen one?” How do tour co-producers, Will Aymerich, Kim Brame and Sally Toole answer? Yes and Yes! Each has seen some, heard some and has had some spirits boldly follow them home. If you think the producers are joking, trust them, they really wish they were! Norcross is so active, especially Thrasher Park, which is the location of this season’s ticket booth, that spirits walk alongside the living, moving in and out of the storefronts of S. Peachtree…

For more than 100 years a train whistle has assured Norcross that all is right with the world. Farmers living miles away from the center of town could hear the whistle and knew that the trains brought with them opportunity to trade their cotton and corn. Children long ago took a chance on getting whipped with a switch to play dangerously close to, and sometimes under at the culvert, the tracks, thrilled by the comings and goings of commuters and excited to watch the post master snag mail bags on big hooks that swung back and forth from the depot. Trains brought work and for many years gangs …

In the land lottery of 1820, the Summerour family won that parcel lying along the Chattahoochee River and on both sides of a dirt trail that lead to the settlement of Turkey Roost, later renamed Pinckneyville. They may have imagined row after row of fluffy white cotton, nuggets of gold waiting to be panned from just under the silt or neighbors getting’ dunked for baptism in the waters of the big pond. Certainly they couldn’t have imagined, even in their wildest of dreams, masses of 40,000 golf fans traipsing around the lush green acreage following the likes of Phil Michelson, Rory McElroy or …

Within the city’s cemetery, weathered tombstones record birth and death dates, some the same day, of those souls who departed this earth. Rampant disease, difficult childbirth, a reckless crossing of a train track, farm equipment mishaps and a bloody Northern Aggression snuffed out the life light of many Norcross denizens. Curious modern visitors step gingerly around the plots, careful to avoid some token offering or memento symbolic of respect--respect for the dead, placed on the oldest of the legible dates. Will the gifts quiet the unsettled souls? Or can the gravedigger’s wagon, be heard …

Of all the time travel vehicles dreamed up on the pages of books or the big screen, a motor coach doesn’t jump out as the most exciting. Don’t tell that to the enthusiastic group who spent last Saturday riding around on such a bus taking in the most historic of locations in Gwinnett County. "A Ride into the Past" carried history buffs throughout the county in air conditioned comfort. Beginning and ending at the Lawrenceville Female Seminary, home of the Gwinnett History Museum, the sightseeing event is part of the History & Culture Program of the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center. …

More than an excuse to grill out with family and friends, Memorial Day, first proclaimed "Decoration Day" in 1868, serves as a remembrance of those who stepped up to serve our country. The men and women who called Norcross home and left that cherished home to battle on fields or ships or airplanes far away were originally honored by stone markers placed in the corners of Thrasher Park. Walk behind the gazebo, brush back the low hanging branches of the old tree that grows there, sweep away the dead leaves and you will find the last remaining intact plaque on which the name of a young man lost …

This week’s blast of heat sent folks running to splash in the fountains at Lillian Webb Park, sip an iced latte at the 45 South or just hide within cooled homes and offices. Although the heat was extreme early in the season Norcross, folks can, for the most part, found some modern way to beat the heat.  Not so fortunate were those souls of Norcross’s early days, before electric fans or air conditioning were invented--Souls who spent the summer months sweltering. Before Edward Buchanan built the stone house at the corner across from Thrasher Park in 1910, residents had no "Edification," that …

Since the early 1800s recollections of weather anomalies jump from the pages of the Farmer’s Almanac as well as handwritten journals. Deep freezes, chokingly dry droughts and quick-moving thunderstorms challenged the fortitude of early settlers and Native Americans who survived on the fruits of their labor, literally. Marion Ray, a Norcross farmer, drew an account of changes in the moon’s silhouette during a late 1890s eclipse he witnessed in the night sky. Cotton kept the Gwinnett economy moving for decades after reconstruction until the boll weevil ate a path of destruction across farmer’s …

Editor's note: We know you've been waiting with baited breath for the second installment of this Historic Norcross series. Need a refresher on the Part 1 of this dramatic story? Read it right here.  A mass of mourners, estimated at 2,000 to 3,000, attended the murdered brothers' funeral, an indication that the Simpson family had a fine reputation.  Deputy Vic Dowis, keenly aware of the threats on his life, as well as the large reward the respectable Dr. O. O. Simpson had offered, left Georgia for several months. The eerie feeling of constantly looking over his shoulder ate away at Vic’s …

For more than 80 years a cloud of mystery has lingered around the shooting of two prominent Norcross brothers, Joe and Orin Simpson. They were shot in a Duluth field, both in their backs. But the reports were conflicting. This story ran in the Feb. 22, 1922 edition of the "Gwinnett Journal":  Joe and Orin Simpson, brothers, farmers in Gwinnett County were shot and killed by Deputy Sheriff Victor Dowis when they refused to allow the officer to search their automobile for whiskey.  Dowis surrendered to higher authorities and after a search of the automobile no moonshine was found.  Dowis …

Not one but two sets of brothers hailing from Norcross have been drafted to the Major Leagues: Roy and Cleo Carlyle and Ivey and Absalom "Red" Wingo.  Ivey Wingo squatted behind the plate for the champion Cincinnati Reds team of 1919. That World Series went down in history, with sports writers coining the phrase "Black Sox Scandal." The Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the series to assure payments of bets, with eight members getting kicked out of the league.  Ivey Wingo’s tie with the scandal and with the famous "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, who was then playing outfield, proved …

Gone… the sand lot. Gone… the players. Gone… the cheering crowds. Decades before baseball players demanded multi-million dollar salaries, before boys and girls of all backgrounds played in organized Little Leagues, the game of baseball was in its infancy.  And Norcross was right in the middle of baseball's early days, with its grassroots team at what is now Lillian Webb Park. During the 1920s more players per capita drafted to the major league from Norcross than from any other small town in America. Town teams became increasingly popular around the country after the Civil War had ended.  …

Colonel John and Martha Miller Adams were born a stone’s throw away from each other in Norcross.  As children, each walked the dirt roads to attend the city’s school which sat at the top of Jones Street. As teens, they passed time cheering town teams playing baseball games on the school’s athletic field. And as young adults they both attended college. John also played semi-pro baseball, pitching a perfect game, and bringing home cakes for pay in lieu of cash. Martha, a beautiful spitfire, was in the first group of women who matriculated into Georgia Tech. Just three days after they were …

 Squatting low now, tired from running bare foot through the wilderness since day broke on my back. Sun casts long shadow on my face while I stroke soft moss of tree at my side.  The tender young oak bends as I tug and tie a shoot of the sapling down to earth with sinew, tendons pulled from the leg of a deer killed by my bow and arrow. I think how I will revisit this spot each bright moon slowly persuading the growing oak into a crook to mark a trail my sons and their sons will follow over many seasons.  Each deformed and dwarfed tree spaced along my path may guide their footsteps towards… …