A history of Gainesville,
since 1818
Postcards, papers and photographs of Gainesville from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Gainesville was established as "Mule Camp Springs" by European-American settlers in the early 1800s. Less than three years after the organization of Hall County on December 15, 1818, Mule Camp Springs was renamed "Gainesville" on April 21, 1821. It was named in honor of General Edmund P. Gaines, a hero of the War of 1812 and a noted military surveyor and road-builder. Gainesville was selected to be the county seat and chartered by the Georgia General Assembly on November 30, 1821.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Gainesville’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
3 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewGirls' canning club, 1900: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Gainesville
See all 50 →
Gainesville, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Girls' canning club (1900) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Historic places
National Register · via Wikidata
From Wikimedia Commons (7), the Library of Congress (2) and the National Register (3). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.