Jackson · Barrow · Gwinnett · Hall
Braselton History
This is the history section of the Braselton guide: how a family farm in western Jackson County became a railroad-era village, an incorporated town in 1916, and eventually one of the only cities in Georgia that crosses four counties.
In 1876, William Harrison Braselton Sr. and his wife, Susan Hosch Braselton, bought roughly 796 acres in western Jackson County and built a farm and plantation. Their children grew up on the property, and the family name became the town's name when a railroad company laying track through the area printed it on the map.
The town was incorporated by the Georgia General Assembly in 1916, and it grew from there by annexation across the county lines that ran through the family estate. Barrow County had been carved out of Gwinnett, Jackson, and Walton in 1914, which is how the lines were already tangled when the town started to grow.
The founding story
A farm, a store, and a railroad name
Read this first
The short version: a post office opened in 1878, a school in 1881, and in 1884 John Oliver Braselton opened the small store that grew into the Braselton Brothers Store. The railroad named the stop after the family, and the General Assembly made it official in 1916.
William Henry Braselton, the eldest son, served as the town's first mayor. His descendants stayed in local government for the better part of a century, and the family name holds the store, the street, and the town to this day.
The old store building survives as downtown's most photographed address: the 1904 Braselton Brothers Department Store, restored and reopened as a market and gallery building on Davis Street. The family business that named the town still anchors the square, just in a newer form.
The four-county question
Why does one small city sit in four counties? Because the town limits of 1916 mainly covered Braselton family land, and the land the town annexed afterward crossed the county lines that were already there. Georgia created Barrow County in 1914 from parts of Gwinnett, Jackson, and Walton, so territory that once sat in one county was split again as the town grew outward.
The result is a town of roughly 34 square miles where the county line can run down a street. It is unusual for the state, and it is the first thing new residents need to understand about a Braselton address.
The county line decides the school district, the ballot, and parts of the public services for any given lot. The four districts and the address check are laid out on the schools page .
The 1989 chapter
The movie-star interlude
Kim Basinger did not found Braselton. In 1989, Oscar-winning actress and Georgia native Kim Basinger and a group of investors bought 1,751 acres of Braselton from Braselton Brothers Inc for $20 million, with plans to build a movie studio and turn the town into a tourist destination.
The Braselton family had founded and owned the town for more than a century before that sale, and a Braselton family member continued as mayor afterward. The venture did not go as planned, and the group sold the property in the mid-1990s after financial trouble.
The modern era
Wine, racing, and a hospital campus
The modern Braselton story is the story of three anchors. Chateau Elan, the winery estate on the city's south side, turned the old estate country into a destination with tasting rooms, golf, and a resort hotel. Road Atlanta, the road course on the southwest edge, fills the calendar with racing weekends and the Petit Le Mans season finale each fall.
The third anchor is the hospital. Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton, the full-service hospital on the River Place campus off Highway 211, is the area's largest employer and the reason the medical offices, urgent care, and pharmacies line the corridors around it. The town that used to be a crossroads now has a regional employer, a resort, and a race track all inside its four-county footprint.
The rest of the Braselton guideHistory stays history; the working guides cover what is open and worth knowing today. If you are weighing a move around Braselton, book a call with Rob Dietrich, the REALTOR® behind this guide.
An editorial guide, not a listings site. Updated September 10, 2026. Real-estate guidance on this page is provided by Rob Dietrich, REALTOR® with eXp Realty, LLC.