Conyers, Georgia

Conyers exists because of a stubborn blacksmith and a clever banker. When the Georgia Railroad was building west toward what would become Atlanta in the eighteen forties, surveyors laid the route through land owned by John Holcomb, who flatly refused to sell and threatened to shoot any railroad man who set foot on his property. A Covington banker named Doctor W.

D. Conyers stepped in, quietly persuaded Holcomb to sell for seven hundred dollars, then turned the land over to the railroad. The railroad named the station Conyers in his honor.

By eighteen fifty-four the village had grown enough to incorporate as a town. Then in eighteen seventy, dissatisfied with governance from Newton County, residents pushed for their own county. Rockdale County was created that year, the second-smallest county in Georgia by area, with Conyers as the seat.