Despite the efforts of the UPCCA, development continued in Peachtree Corners throughout the 1990s, so that in 1999, the idea of incorporating Peachtree Corners was first proposed. The United Peachtree Corners Civic Association (UPCCA), an umbrella group of neighborhood homeowners’ associations, was formed in 1993 in response to land use and overdevelopment concerns in the area. Neely Farm was one of the last neighborhoods to be built in Peachtree Corners, and it is located on the former farm of Frank Neely that abuts the Chattahoochee River. The line that allowed for the 1990s development of Amberfield, Linfield, Riverfield, Wesleyan School, and the businesses in Spalding Triangle office park, Fiserv, and The Forum. In 1985, Cowart built the Farrell Creek sewer line, from the Wolf Creek pumping station to Farrell Creek, and up Farrell Creek to the east side of Highway 141. The neighborhoods of Riverfield and Wellington Lake were developed by Jim’s son, Dan Cowart, who was also responsible for locating Wesleyan School in Peachtree Corners. Cowart also developed River Station, Revington, Linfield, and Amberfield. He began Peachtree Station in 1979, which developed out at 726 homes. Chattahoochee Station had gone bankrupt, so Cowart took that property over from a bank and finished developing that neighborhood. The first neighborhood in Peachtree Corners that Jim Cowart developed was Spalding Corners. He determined from Gwinnett County where the sewer treatment lift station would be and went upstream and bought everything he could afford. Having developed and built homes in Dunwoody for years, Cowart came over to Peachtree Corners in the late 1970s, not as a home builder, but as a land developer. The man who turned Paul Duke’s vision into executive neighborhoods in Peachtree Corners was Jim Cowart. In 1968, Duke established Peachtree Corners, Inc., and coaxed top developers from throughout the country to work within a stringent set of covenants and restrictions established to control the quality and type of residential development in the area. As a member of the Georgia Tech National Advisory Board, he persuaded 16 others to invest $1.7 million to develop a business center that would raise funds for Tech’s foundation and supply local jobs for graduates in high technology fields. In 1967, Duke initiated the planning of the office component of Peachtree Corners, Technology Park/Atlanta, a campus of low-rise buildings that would house low-pollution, high technology industries to employ engineers graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Duke envisioned a place where people could live, work, and play in the same quality controlled environment, thus diminishing the need for long commutes. In the late 1960s, a businessman named Paul Duke pitched the idea of creating Peachtree Corners, a planned community to be constructed in the area that was once known as Pinckneyville. įor the next century, the area remained a rural farming community. In 1870 a railroad was built through Norcross, and due to the heavy trading that could be done via the railroad, all of the area's businesses and many residents moved from Pinckneyville to Norcross. However, the prosperity of Pinckneyville was to be short-lived. The area was also home to a post office, saloon, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop and inn. By 1827, the community was home to the second school in Gwinnett County, The Washington Academy, founded on what is now Spalding Drive. A small farming community known as Pinckneyville grew up along that road. In the early 1800s a road was built along a Native American trail from what is now Buford to what is now Atlanta. However, there were several families of white squatters in the area before settlement was legalized, including Isham Medlock, whose name is lent to Medlock Bridge Road. Prior to 1818, the western corner of what became Gwinnett County was Creek and Cherokee Indian Territory, and it was illegal for white families to settle there. Peachtree Corners is the only one of Atlanta's northern suburbs that was developed as a planned community. The city, situated on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, is located east of Dunwoody and south of Johns Creek. It is a northern suburb of Atlanta, and is the largest city in Gwinnett County with a population of 40,059 in 2013. Peachtree Corners is a city in western Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States.