Cuba, Georgia, was settled circa 1875 and had a post office from 1883-1890. It was named for the Caribbean island and may have evolved around a plantation. Geographical designations based on “exotic” locales were common in the 19th century.
If you use the map to locate Cuba today, you’ll find this abandoned grocery store beside U.S. Highway 27, a couple of miles south of Blakely. But the historical settlement was actually about a quarter mile down the dirt road to the west, near Cuba Presbyterian Church.
Note: A photo search for Cuba, Georgia, on the internet will deliver images of Mrs. Roy Redd’s Grocery, Cuba, Ga, in Forsyth County, but this is misleading. No such community ever existed and in a recent article in the Forsyth County News, Kelly Whitmire explains: One of the most recognizable looks into old Forsyth is on a Coca-Cola sign in front of an old store on Friendship Circle with the words “Mrs. Roy Redd Cuba, Ga.” …locals didn’t pronounce the name the same way as the country and instead called it “Cubey.” The name came from a popular card game played at the store.
There are two different places in Georgia that have used the name Cuba, and that is why the accounts look contradictory.
Early County (south Georgia, near Blakely)
This is a documented unincorporated settlement that existed in the late 1800s. It had a post office from 1883 to 1890, was named after the island of Cuba (a common 19th-century habit of using “exotic” place names), and sat near what is now Cuba Presbyterian Church, a short distance west of U.S. 27 a couple of miles south of Blakely. That is the Cuba, Georgia that appears in official geographic records and Wikipedia.
Forsyth County (west of Cumming, Friendship community)
This is the place your grandmother would have known. It was never incorporated and never had its own official listing in most gazetteers, which is why one writer called it “no such community ever existed.” Local newspapers and residents, however, treated it as a real hamlet. It sat on Friendship Circle (the old loop off Highway 20 / Canton Highway just past Bethelview Road). People there pronounced it “Cubey,” not like the country. The name is locally explained as coming from a brand of poker cards or a traveling sideshow rather than the island. The Coca-Cola sign on Mrs. Roy Redd’s store is the visual remnant everyone still recognizes.
The Vanishing Georgia site is simply warning people not to mix the two when they search for photographs. The Forsyth County Cuba is the one that matches your family’s geography.