Happy Birthday, Mr. Cowan!

[The following come from the speech I gave at the Peachtree City City Council meeting on Thursday, June 18, 2026.]

It is an honor to be here tonight to “unveil” the latest exhibition on behalf of the Joel Cowan History Room at Peachtree City Library. The Joel Cowan History Room was established in 1987, under Library Manager M.T. Allen, to collect and preserve documents and artifacts pertaining to the formation and history of the City of Peachtree City and the surrounding area. We’ve done a lot of collecting over the years, but our latest push has been to make these items publicly accessible. First, I’d like to thank Rebecca Watts, the librarian who really kicked off the effort to identify the items in the Joel Cowan History Room, and especially all the volunteers, including those who conducted and/or transcribed the oral history interviews from over 20 years ago. Thanks to the Friends of the Peachtree City Library for supporting the work that goes on in the Joel Cowan History Room including the purchase of supplies, and to Lee Eltzroth who continues to volunteer her time creating the finding aids, many of which have been added to our online repository. And finally, I’d also like to thank Charlie Nelson, for his boundless enthusiasm for local history and his willingness to share his knowledge and resources.

If you picked up a postcard out in the lobby, our digital resources are listed on the back side. If you use the QR code at the top, it will take you to the webpage for the Joel Cowan History Room, which contains links to all the items with URLs.

Tonight I’d like to draw your attention to our new online exhibit titled: “The Development of Peachtree City: A ‘New Town’ for South Metro Atlanta.”

This exhibit attempts to tell the story of the founding and development of Peachtree City in no more than 15 slides. A LOT of people were involved in Peachtree City’s development. Too many to mention in this exhibit. What we’ve tried to do is pare the story down to its essence with a focus on the early years. There will be a link added for a “Who’s Who” at a later date, where we will include people such as Bob Bivens, Miriam Fulton, and others on up through the later development under Doug Mitchell, including Jerry Peterson, Rick Schlosser, and many, many others.

History can be a tricky thing. Many claim to have THE “definitive” history on a variety of subjects, but I’m here to tell you—history isn’t ever “definitive.” That’s why historians continue to write books on significant historical events such as the founding of our nation. History is never really “settled.” I think most people now accept that even eyewitness testimony can be problematic. You can have two people witness the same incident and tell two completely different accounts. The best we can do is study the resources available, especially the primary sources, and contextualize and synthesize the information to try to draw some conclusions. So…all that said:

We are here tonight to honor Joel H. Cowan, and I think most people who know something about Peachtree City history can agree on the following:  

Peter S. Knox Jr. of Thomson, Georgia, was the visionary behind Peachtree City, and Joel Cowan was the person he hired to carry out his vision. Many people call Joel the founder, as do I. I use the word founder in the “boots on the ground” sense. He lived here; he managed the project; he raised his family here—he had skin the game. He spent a lot of time around the potbellied stove at the old McWilliams Grocery Store, soliciting advice from locals, including where to dam up Flat Creek to create a lake. Joel put in a lot of sweat equity, with the help of his cousin Chip Conner, who became the city’s third mayor and for whom Spyglass Island was renamed two weeks ago. The two of them bulldozed the city’s first residential street, Hip Pocket, and built the second dam on Lake Peachtree, the one that Joel designed himself and lasted for over 50 years until it was replaced by the piano key weir that opened in 2018.

And here’s where I’ll offer my personal slant: after absorbing and synthesizing all the information we’ve gathered about Peachtree City’s history, there is no doubt in MY mind that Joel was charismatic. Remember Mr. Knox the visionary? He was so impressed with Joel that he hired him at 21 years of age—while he was still at student at Georgia Tech. (I love telling our summer interns this story!)

Then when the money for the Peachtree City project ran out, and Mr. Knox was kind of losing interest in it, Joel took it upon himself to try and find additional investors, eventually arriving at a businessman based in New York City named James F. Riley Jr. Mr. Riley worked for Bessemer Properties, an organization not really interested in property in Georgia—but he took a shine to Joel—and the injection of capital from Bessemer gave the Peachtree City project new life. (I also tell our interns the importance of networking!)

There were many reasons why Peachtree City could have failed in those early years like many other “new towns” in the United States did, but Joel H. Cowan believed in it, and convinced others to believe in it too. And here we are…and here he STILL is…67 years later after the city was first chartered. And, by the way, he turns 90 today!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Cowan!