History UnderfootAtlanta
  • Stream
  • Water
  • named by the 1800s
  • DeKalb County
  • Location approximate

Snapfinger Creek

A South River tributary running from Pine Lake south through central and south DeKalb. A popular story says a surveyor named it after snapping a finger; Georgia Place-Names calls it a 'finger' (branch) of Snapping Shoals Creek.

See it on the map All Water records

The record

Krakow's Georgia Place-Names calls the surveyor story 'undocumented,' and GPB's 'What's in a Name?' (2018) reports the book's alternative, that the creek is a branch of Snapping Shoals Creek. The creek rises near Pine Lake, where it was widened into the town's lake, and joins the South River near DeKalb's Snapfinger wastewater plant (1961). It was one of three streams named for cleanup in DeKalb's 2010 sewer settlement.

Today: Open creek.