[7] The Lacoda Trail, which extended from present-day Athens to the north Georgia mountains, was a significant trade and travel route through this area.

[8][9] The first permanent white settlement in Jackson County began near present-day Commerce on January 20, 1784, when German immigrant William Dunson was awarded a land grant on Little Sandy Creek.

The Harmony Grove community was officially incorporated as a town on December 24, 1884, including all areas within a one-mile radius of the railroad depot, one half mile east, and 400 yards west.

Harmony Grove Mills, Inc. was organized under the laws of Jackson County on April 3, 1893, for the purpose of processing and producing cotton textiles.

The mill village created to house employees makes up a significant portion of the homes on the southeast end of Commerce today.

Near the end of the 19th century, many began to feel that the name "Harmony Grove" was too long to write and sounded too much like a country village.

Harmony Grove was reincorporated and renamed "Commerce" on August 6, 1904, in an effort to address these concerns and reflect the city's commercial dominance in the north Georgia cotton trade.

Even more so than the railroad nearly a century before, this major transportation artery brought tremendous commercial advantage to Commerce, at a time it desperately needed it.