Originally incorporated as Springville in 1838, Powder Springs is a city on the former lands of Cherokee Indian leaders. Gold had been found in Georgia ten years prior to the city’s founding, leading to a boom in European-American settlers searching for wealth. The settlers constructed gold mines at Lost Mountain and on Brownsville Road. After this new influx of settlers, the Cherokee people were forced off their land and forced to relocate to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River following the Trail of Tears. Springville was renamed as Powder Springs in 1859. The name derived from the seven springs inside the city limits. The water in those springs includes roughly 26 minerals that turn the surrounding sand black like gunpowder – earning it the nickname of Gunpowder Springs.
