- Settlement
- Early
- 1830s crossroads; railroad 1845; chartered March 5, 1856
- DeKalb County
- Location approximate
Lithonia (Crossroads), chartered 1856
A farm community called Crossroads grew up by the 1830s; the Georgia Railroad arrived in 1845, and the town was chartered as Lithonia on March 5, 1856, its limits a half-mile circle around the depot.
The record
The 2016 National Register nomination says the historic district sits on seven land lots drawn in the 1821 lottery and that Crossroads stood where the Lawrenceville-McDonough road met the Decatur-Augusta road. A post office opened in 1845 in William Rufus Pendley's store, a log schoolhouse followed in 1847 and an academy in 1851. Tradition credits a teacher with coining the name from Greek words for 'place of stone.' The 1850 census counted 456 white residents, with 40 of 106 household heads holding 168 enslaved people; by 1860 the white population was 406 and 28 of 108 household heads held slaves. Lithonia's first granite quarry opened in 1879, after this period.
Today: Lithonia Historic District (National Register, 2016) along Main St and the CSX line.