Buford, Georgia

Buford is a city in Gwinnett and Hall counties in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 12,225. Most of the city is in Gwinnett County, which is part of the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Statistical Area. The portions of the city in Hall County are not part of Atlanta's metropolitan statistical area, but are part of Atlanta's larger Combined Statistical Area, which includes Hall County.

History

The recorded history of Buford began in the early 19th century. The area that is now Buford was originally Cherokee territory and despite the treaty in 1817 that ceded the territory to the United States and Gwinnett County's legislative establishment in 1818, the area was still largely inhabited by Cherokee until the 1830s. The first non-Native American moved to the Buford area in the late 1820s or early 1830s, although the Buford area was not largely inhabited by non-Native Americans until the 1860s.

During the post-civil war construction of the extended Richmond and Danville Railroad System, railroad stockholders Thomas Garner and Larkin Smith purchased land around the railroad's right-of-way and began developing the city of Buford. The city was named after Algernon Sidney Buford, who was president of the Atlanta and Richmond Air-Line Railway during the railroad's construction. The town began rapidly expanding after the railway's completion in 1871 of the railroad that now runs through downtown Buford. Buford was incorporated as the Town of Buford on August 24, 1872, and the name was changed to the City of Buford in 1896.