TOONIGH, GEORGIA

'Toonigh', located between Holly Springs and Woodstock, is also (and more commonly) known as Lebanon. (The community's original, railroad name is Toonigh, but a few years later the local post office branch opened as Lebanon.) According to ''Georgia Place-Names'' by Kenneth Krakow, the name Toonigh is probably derived from the Cherokee Indian word "Tooantuh," which means "spring frog" and was also the name of a Cherokee chief. A popular legend has it that the place was given its name because it was "too nigh" Woodstock and Holly Springs to become a full-fledged town of itself. Another story tells that the train station building - assembled elsewhere and delivered via flatbed rail car - was originally set "too nigh" to the railroad track.