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Snellville is a city in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States, east of Atlanta. The population was 15,351 at the 2000 census. Census estimates for 2006 show a population of 19,983. The city’s mayor, Jerry Oberholtzer, was elected to a 4-year term in 2007. Snellville is an increasingly important suburb of Atlanta. The city’s commercial and residential development has grown enormously in recent years. In the Atlanta metro area, Snellville is known (mostly humorously) for the slogan on its city limit signs: ‘Everybody’s Somebody In Snellville’.

History

English settlers
The city used to sell bumper stickers at city hall for $1

In 1874 seventeen-year-old friends from London, England, Thomas Snell and James Sawyer, secretly planned a voyage to the New World. On March 18, James Sawyer and his brother, Charles Sawyer, left England but Snell’s parents, having learned of the plan, wouldn’t allow him to leave, thus delaying his departure. The Sawyer brothers arrived in New York on April 1 and, after a few weeks, headed towards Athens, Georgia and then to Madison County where they stayed and worked on a farm for $10 a month. Snell did eventually follow his friends to New York and made his way south to meet them. The three then made their way through Jefferson and Lawrenceville. Shortly after Snell’s arrival, Charles left for Pennsylvania, later returning to the south and settling in Alabama where he went into the turpentine business. James had gone also, in search of his brother, leaving Snell to work on the farm of A. A. Dyer.

Unable to find his brother, James Sawyer returned to New York and began work on a farm near the Hudson River area until his 21st birthday in 1878 when he returned to England to claim his inheritance. Shortly following, in August 1879, he returned to Americus, Georgia and then Gwinnett County. Once in Gwinnett County Sawyer went to a small settlement near Stone Mountain then known as New London, where he found Snell. In the homestead that Snell now referred to as Snellville, the two built a small wood frame building and started a business together, Snell and Sawyer’s Store, similar to the one in which they were employed in London. As was common in small mill towns of the time, they printed store money with the trade value and Snell’s likeness on the front that regular customers could use to purchase goods. By the end of 1879 the business was prospering and catering to customers from the neighboring towns of Lawrenceville and Loganville. Travelers would buy supplies at “Snell and Sawyer’s” and often spend the night in the nearby oak groves, as the trip was too great for one day’s travel. It is uncertain when New London officially became Snellville, but the location of the partners’ store was referred to as Snellville in their advertising and the young town began to show a promising future.

But the partnership dissolved and Sawyer kept the old store, building granite stone above and around the old frame and then disassembling the wood frame from within. Snell built a new store of granite. In 1883 Sawyer built a home and married Miss Emma Webb, of the historic Snellville Webb family, on November 15. Sawyer opened Snellville’s first post office in 1885 and served as Postmaster from the back of his store.

Snell died at the early age of 39 in 1896 due to complications following an appendicitis operation. He was buried in Brownlee Mountain, presently known as Nob Hill, and later removed and buried again in nearby Lithonia.

Initially forced into partial retirement due to his failing eyesight, Sawyer went into full retirement in the 1940’s following complete blindness. After that time the store was owned and operated by various merchants until it was destroyed in 1960 and a service station was built in its place. James Sawyer died in 1948 at the age of 91 and is buried in the Baptist Cemetery (now Snellville Historical Cemetery).

City beginnings

The City of Snellville received their charter from the General Assembly of the State of Georgia (1923). The first mayor of Snellville was Gladston Snell and the first police officer was Byron Whitworth.

In the late 1920s the charter went dormant and remained so for approximately 12 years before it was reorganized in 1940. W. C. Britt acted as Mayor and George Martin and Crawford Juhan served as police officers. The city limits were enlarged to a 1-mile (1.6 km) radius from the center of town. Following Britt’s term, the charter was again dormant until World War II, at which time Arthur Stancil became Mayor. The charter has since remained active.