Centerville, here’s a name for your next local-history rabbit hole: Hattie. That was the name of a post office operating inside a local store, and a newspaper notice more than 136 years old tells us whose store it was. 📬
On January 16, 1890, the Houston Home Journal reported that a new post office had been established at Centerville. Its name was Hattie, its location was M. F. Etheridge’s store, and Etheridge was the postmaster. His name does double duty in that little piece of postal history.
The reason for Hattie? According to the City of Centerville’s historical account, another Centerville post office already existed in Gwinnett County. The alternative name honored the daughter of state representative Mitchell F. Etheridge. Even a post office, it seems, could discover that its first choice of name was already taken.
Here’s where the paper trail keeps us honest. 🔎 The city’s online timeline places the postal-name story under 1900, but the surviving newspaper notice documents Hattie a decade earlier. We can say the office existed by January 1890; that notice doesn’t give us its exact opening or closing day.
The two names turn up together in a letter published April 21, 1892. The pupils who wrote it identified themselves as members of Centerville High School’s Excelsior Literary and Debating Society. That’s a lot of syllables before you’ve even started debating.
They described their school as a few rods from Hattie and the village of Centerville to the west, with homes, gin houses and blacksmith shops. One letter, both names—handy to remember when you’re searching the old papers.
And then there’s the front porch with theatrical ambitions. 🎭 A June 7, 1900, report used Hattie in its account of the local school’s end-of-term concert. The school’s front porch had been enlarged into a stage, with curtains in the national colors.
According to that June 1900 report, at least 200 parents and friends filled the seats, including visitors from Byron, Dunbar, Toy, Kathleen and Perry. The program ran three hours, with music, recitations, dialogues and other performances. Quite a workout for a front porch.
All of this belongs to the community’s history long before incorporation. Centerville received its charter on March 25, 1958, according to the city’s history.
So, if you’re tracing a Houston County family, school or church, keep Hattie beside Centerville on your search list. Georgia Historic Newspapers makes these old issues available online. Try both names: there’s more than one way to address this bit of Houston County history.