Oconee Woods Origin Story

Story By Kim Henry

Jack Henry was thinking about purchasing some land in Coweta County in about 1961 with some airline pilot partners. When the partners decided against participating, Pinky convinced her husband that they could do it alone. Thus began a journey of almost 50 years.

The property that Oconee Woods is situated was the first piece of land purchased, but the last developed. It comprised 40 acres owned by John Sharp. He lived in a farmhouse without running water, gas, or indoor plumbing. An outhouse was in the front yard, a hand-cranked well was in the back along with pile of coal for the pot-bellied stove in the kitchen. With the purchase money, John Sharp bought a nice house in Virginia Highlands.

When my parents purchased the land, I-85 had not been built yet. We had to take Route 29 through Palmetto to reach the property. As children, our family spent many weekends battling creeping kudzu vines. I learned to drive on the Ford tractor, bush-hogging the grass pasture.

After John Sharp moved, my parents rented the farmhouse out to an elderly farm couple. They had chickens under the house, and used to ask me to crawl under the house to gather the eggs. Our family stayed overnight one weekend and found out how noisy all the wildlife was at night in the country.

At that time, people dumping trash on vacant Coweta property was a huge problem. They would cut chains to the back pasture to access land to put their household garbage. My Mom, Dad, and I would go through the piles of trash trying to find identifying information to tell us who dumped it there. One time we returned some trash to the front yard of the rightful owner and my Dad nearly got shot.

My Boy Scout troop camped on the raw land behind the house two weekends. There were no ponds on the property at that time. My sister fenced in an area in the pasture in which to house her horse Freddy. This part of Coweta County was still very rustic. It was almost totally owned by three “W” families- The Waites, the Wingos, and the Winkles.

For a time my parents tried raising 50 pigs on a back lot behind the house, but found out how difficult it was to turn a profit with small-scale farming.

Many things can happen good and bad in development. A man named Rockmore and his Cannongate consortium decided to construct a golf course across the road. My father sold them some land of his land across the road to make it larger.

My parents developed two other subdivisions on land they had bought which was closer to Newnan. One was Rayner Woods and the other was Thomas Crossroads.

Pinky was always enamored of Native Americans and their art. The original Oconee Woods entrance sign had the head of an Indian Chief on it. I remember their development plans sitting on the dining room table. Pinky was in charge of naming the streets in the subdivision.

Pinky always intended to move from Hapeville to Oconee Woods. She carefully reserved what she thought was the best lot in the subdivision for her. Finally in 2005 she built her dream house at 125 Oconee Woods Trail. She lived there until 2016 when a fall meant she was best housed in assisted living.

Another fall while dancing hastened her decline. Pinky's dementia rapidly advanced. She spent her final days in Hope Memory Care Center in Fayetteville passing away late Wednesday night, February 16.

Without Pinky Henry, there would be no Oconee Woods Subdivision. What was once derelict land now contains beautiful homes for many families.