Flowery Branch Commercial Historic District

Flowery Branch's central business district is a dense row of one- and two-story commercial buildings along Main Street and Railroad Avenue, built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The buildings are attached, set at the sidewalk, and made of brick or rusticated concrete block. Details include corbeled and stepped cornices, metal cornices with floral designs, metal columns, arched windows and brick pilasters. The two-story Carlisle Building, built by farmer Eli Carlisle, has an Italianate entrance with a round-arched lunette window. The district grew after the Richmond and Danville Air-Line Railroad arrived around 1871, and its streets run perpendicular to the tracks, a layout common to railroad towns in Georgia. The town shipped thousands of bales of cotton each year for several northeast Georgia counties. Businesses included hotels, cotton gins, a bank, general stores, a blacksmith shop and later mills and a furniture company. The district was listed for its architecture, commerce, planning and local history, with a significance period of 1871 to 1934.