During the American Civil War, when forces of the Union Army penetrated the South, thousands of slaves escaped from plantations to go to their lines.

Hundreds of fugitive African-Americans drowned during the campaign while trying to cross Ebenezer Creek near the site of present-day Rincon, outside of Savannah.

The surrounding farmers, sawmill operators and the like, who had taken their products of cotton and lumber to Savannah, could "wagon" to Rincon to ship by rail.

Some men served in the military, and many locals in and around Rincon commuted daily to work in shipbuilding and other war-related plants in Port Wentworth and Savannah.

It had a steeple belltower and bell to signal recess and lunch periods, and the daily opening and closing of school.

The incorporated limits of Rincon originally formed a circle having a diameter of 2.5 miles (4.0 km), with the center at the site of the old (now gone) railroad depot, but annexations of land since the late 20th century have changed this shape.

In approximately 1934, Georgia State Route 21 was paved from the Chatham County line in the south, northward through Rincon and Springfield and beyond.

These improvements were made during the Great Depression to provide jobs to working men, with assistance from the federal government under the WPA program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose administration invested heavily in infrastructure in the South.

As suburban development has expanded outward from Savannah, since 1990 the population of Rincon has grown rapidly, rising from 2,697 in 1990 to an estimated 9,638 in 2014.