Norcross was incorporated in 1870 by John J. Thrasher, a pioneer Atlanta settler who named the town after his friend and business associate Jonathan Norcross. It was the second city in Gwinnett County and the first placed on the National Registry of Historic Places. The Old Baseball Field, originally on the site of present-day Lillian Webb Park, was home to the Norcross Nuggets, and Norcross is said to have produced more professional baseball players per capita than any other town in the nation, with four major leaguers and many minor leaguers from a population of perhaps 1,000. The Norx, the first car manufactured south of the Mason-Dixon Line, was produced in Norcross by a company owned by Edward Buchanan, who grew up there and later succeeded on Wall Street in the early 1900s. The Eastern Continental Divide runs along Thrasher Park on N. Peachtree St. and is a physical ridge that more than 200 years ago served as the dividing line between Creek and Cherokee tribe territories, with a well-traveled trading path to the Chattahoochee River reportedly called Pitch Tree Road after pitch tapped from local pine trees to seal canoes. The Old Cotton Gin on Lawrenceville Street was once owned by the Summerour family, and in the early 1900s Homer Summerour developed and marketed a more productive cotton variety called Half and Half; his fame was such that orders addressed simply to Cotton Seed Man and Georgia were said to reach him in Norcross. Known as Atlanta's Summer Resort, Norcross drew visitors in the late 1800s seeking relief from the city by way of the Airline Belle commuter train and hotels such as The Brunswick, with porch rockers, chicken pot pie, the Chattahoochee, and performances by the Norcross Concert Band in Thrasher Park helping make it an oasis close to home.