Grovetown has sister-city plan

Grovetown doesn't have a twin.

"To my knowledge, there is no other Grovetown in the United States," said Charles Lord, a Columbia County historian.

The city might soon have a sister, though.

City Councilman Dick Manion said at a Sept. 25 meeting that he is in talks with officials from Groveton, N.H., about forming a sister-city partnership. Manion said he discovered Groveton while researching family history in the city, which is just north of Lancaster and Mount Washington.

Both cities were incorporated at about the same time. In Grovetown's 1881 charter, the city was listed as Groveton. The Grovetown Museum displays a sign installed by city employees in the 1950s that misspelled the city's name.

Exactly when and why Grovetown's name was changed to add the "w" is still a mystery, Lord said.

The New Hampshire city's name has a reversed history from Grovetown's: It was originally named Grovetown and because of a misspelling somewhere in its history, the name changed to Groveton.

"They were originally Grovetown, and now they are Groveton," Manion said. "We started as Groveton, and now we're Grovetown."

The cities share similar beginnings. Groveton grew around a railroad depot.

"They were built around the railroad, just like we are," Manion said.

The city was named for a grove of maple trees that stood near where the city's train depot was built.

Lord said he was able to locate four cities named Groveton - the one in New Hampshire and others in Texas, Virginia and Kentucky. Lord also located references to two other Grovetons in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but those might no longer exist, he said.

Manion said he has been talking with the Groveton city manager, who plans to take the idea to the city's group of selectmen, which is equivalent to a city council. He said he hopes the partnership will allow the cities to exchange plaques and resolutions and display each other's tourism information.

"I'm excited about this sister city relationship," Manion said. "The advantage is a lot of people there go south for the winter to Florida. We can advertise there and probably get some folks to stop in here."

Manion said the partnership could be another way to expose Grovetown to the rest of the world.