Hardwood Floor Refinishing Near Me in Buford, Ga

Buford is a city in Gwinnett and Hall counties in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 17,144. Most of the city is in Gwinnett County, which is allocation of the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Statistical Area. The northern sliver of the city is in Hall County, which comprises the Gainesville, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area and is part of the larger Atlanta-Athens-Clarke-Sandy Springs Combined Statistical Area.

The city was founded in 1872 after a railroad was built in the area connecting Charlotte, North Carolina, with Atlanta. Buford was named after Algernon Sidney Buford, who at the time was president of the Atlanta and Richmond Air-Line Railway. The city's leather industry, led by the Bona Allen Company, as capably as its location as a railway stop, caused the population to expand during the early 1900s until after the Great Depression had ended.

The city operates its own theoretical district, the Buford City School District, and has been the birthplace and house of several musicians and athletes. Various tourist locations, including museums and community centers, the largest mall in the come clean of Georgia, the Mall of Georgia, and Lake Lanier Islands are in the Buford region.

Buford appears in historical records arrival in the prematurely 19th century. The Place that is now Buford was originally part of Cherokee territory. Despite the deal in 1817 that ceded the territory to the United States and Gwinnett County's legislative foundation in 1818, the Place was still largely inhabited by the Cherokee until the 1830s. The first non-Native Americans moved to the Buford area in the late 1820s or in advance 1830s, although the Buford area was not largely approved by them until the 1860s.

During the post-Civil War construction of the extended Richmond and Danville Railroad System in 1865, railroad stockholders Thomas Garner and Larkin Smith purchased land with reference to the railroad's right-of-way and began developing the city of Buford. The city was named after Algernon Sidney Buford, who was president of the Atlanta and Richmond Air-Line Railway during the railroad's construction. The town began hurriedly expanding concerning the railway after its finishing in 1871, and it was incorporated as the Town of Buford on August 24, 1872, and renamed the City of Buford in 1896.

In the late 1800s and forward 1900s Buford became widely known for its leather production, becoming prominently united with the leather industry and earning the nickname "The Leather City". Buford became a large producer of leather products, including saddles, horse collars, bridles, and shoes. Buford's leather industry began taking into consideration a leatherworker named R.H. Allen instigation a harness shop and tannery in 1868, three years since the achievement of the railway and the founding of Buford. R.H. Allen's brother Bona Allen moved to Buford from Rome, Georgia, in 1872 and founded the Bona Allen Company the as soon as year. The leather industry speedily became the city's largest industry despite setbacks from several fires, including a flame in 1903 that destroyed the buildings of several businesses and a flame in 1906 that destroyed a straw storehouse and approximately destroyed the city's harness and horse collar factory.

Bona Allen saddles were easy to accomplish to through the Sears mail order catalog, and many Hollywood actors used saddles made by the Bona Allen Company, including cowboy actors Gene Autry, the cast of Bonanza, and Roy Rogers, who used a Bona Allen saddle upon his horse Trigger. A statue of Roy Rogers and a Bona Allen saddle-maker saddling Trigger is located in downtown Buford. The Bona Allen Company thrived during the Great Depression in the 1930s, likely correspondingly of the Depression forcing farmers to choose horses over costly tractors, thereby increasing the request for saddles, collars, bridles, and additional leather products.

The Bona Allen Company build up Tannery Row in downtown Buford as a shoe factory in 1919. After a brief employee strike the shoe factory was closed in 1942, although it was briefly reopened by the request of the federal processing during World War II to make footwear for the military. Afterwards, the factory closed in 1945. In 2003 Tannery Row became home to the Tannery Row Artist Colony, which houses galleries and studios for artists.

After the Great Depression the use of horses for gardening decreased and tractors took their place, and the Bona Allen Company steadily downsized until the tannery was eventually sold to the Tandy Corporation in 1968. Buford's leather industry finished after the tannery experienced a flame in 1981, when the Tandy Corporation arranged not to rebuild the tannery and closed the facility.