Norcross is a city in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States. The city had a population of 8,410 in 2000. Census Estimates for 2005 show a population of 9,887. The city of Norcross is located at 33° 56' 19" N, 084° 12' 31" W.
Norcross was founded in 1866 by John Thrasher. Thrasher named the town after his good friend Jonathan Norcross, the fourth mayor of Atlanta. Thrasher himself had been an early settler of Whitehall, but left in 1842. The site of Whitehall is now in downtown Atlanta, just southwest of the city center.
The original settlers in the Norcross area lived in Pinckneyville, two miles north of Norcross, at the crossroads of Peachtree and Medlock Bridge. They later abandoned their settlement and joined Thrasher in Norcross when the railroad was built in 1870. As the first train stop going northeast out of Atlanta towards Washington, D.C., it became a resort town for the Atlanta elite. Made more attractive by its slightly cooler temperatures due to the higher elevation, vacation homes were built in what is now Historic Norcross.