William Belk "Bill" Lynn, born in Alabama in 1846 and died in 1919, was the son of Martin R. Lynn and Sarah Ann "Nicey" Conway, who according to family tradition was of Creek Indian ancestry. By 1864 he and his brother James Martin Lynn had enlisted as privates in Company E, 38th Alabama Infantry Regiment, CSA. Captured and imprisoned by the Union army, they were paroled at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1865. Bill later moved into Decatur County, where he married Nancy L. "Nannie" Donalson. A successful trader in real estate, he amassed extensive property through his own efforts and through his marriage. He became instrumental in founding the community of Lynn Station. When construction of a railroad line began in the area in the 1890s, he donated a right of way through his land to ensure the line's extension north to Arlington, Georgia. He also donated land for a church near the railroad and encouraged businesses to establish nearby. Lynn Station eventually had several homes, a cotton gin, a grist mill, a store, and a post office, prospered for several decades in the early 1900s, and began a gradual decline during the Great Depression.