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Early on, Vinings was known as Crossroads, and then Paces, after Hardy Pace, circa 1830. He operated Pace’s Ferry across the Chattahoochee River, in this area between Atlanta, Buckhead, and Smyrna. Paces Ferry Road is still the main east-west road through Vinings. The Western and Atlantic Railroad laid rail tracks from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Atlanta in the 1840s. Vinings became a construction station for the railroad, and was inadvertently named for William H. Vining, as he worked on the railroad construction of “Vining’s Bridge” laying tracks in the area. The railroad is still state-owned as it was from the beginning, and is now leased to CSX.

The Union Army occupied the Vinings area during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War in 1864 and the subsequent March to the Sea. Pace’s home, which had been used as a hospital for Union troops, was destroyed in the process. Vinings recovered after the war, as Governor Brown leased the railroad to Vinings to bring passengers to the springs and pavilions built to encourage a respite from the reconstruction of Atlanta. Vinings was officially recognized as a community in 1904, the same year the one-lane bridge was constructed across the Chattahoochee River. The town was never incorporated, though it had been discussed whether it should become a “township”.

The Vinings Historic Preservation Society seeks to keep the town’s history alive.