A trail known as the Peachtree Trail stretched from  Standing Pitch Tree along the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta to Fort Daniel located at Hog Mountain in present-day Gwinnett County.  The Peachtree Road construction began in 1812.  Many portions of the present road trace this route.

At the beginning of the War of 1812 two forts were established in Georgia to protect settlers of the then western frontier from the Cherokee  and Creek indians  who were collaborating with the enemy. Fort Daniel was located at Hog Mountain  and Fort Peachtree  was located at Standing Pitch Tree, about 30 miles inside the Indian lands. William Nesbit supervised the building of Military Rd from Ft. Daniel to a shallow ford on the Chattahoochee River . This became the beginnings of Peachtree Road  constructed between the two forts along Peachtree Ridge.  In Atlanta the trail from Standing Pitch Tree is now Moores Mill Rd. to W. Paces Ferry Rd. to Peachtree Rd. in Buckhead.

From the north-east, it passed from Hog Mountain, through Duluth  and down modern-day South Old Peachtree Rd. into Peachtree Corners at the intersection of South Old Peachtree Rd. and Medlock Bridge Road  which was the center of early Pinckneyville.  Peachtree Road turned and ran through historic Old Town Norcross . It followed the same path as modern-day North Peachtree St. and West Peachtree St., into and out of old town Norcross, then roughly along the same path as the railroad tracks into Chamblee where it overlaps with our modern day Peachtree Road.

Much of the north-eastern part of the trail is now Old Peachtree Rd. which runs along the Eastern Continental Divide.  However in Atlanta, the trail is not on the ECD until it connects up with the Divide at S. Peachtree St. and Jimmy Carter Blvd. in Norcross.
 
 

Atlanta grew up on a site occupied by the Creek people, and the "peachtree" street was, in fact, not named for a peach tree of any sort, but for a large Creek settlement called Standing Pitch Tree after a tall lone tree. Reportedly, the Creek used trees with fresh pitch (the sap of a pine tree) for solemnizing vows and treaties. The "pitch tree" was corrupted to "peach tree", perhaps by mistake, or because it sounded better to English speakers. While peaches are so widely feral, they seem native to northern Georgia and the Atlanta area, and though Georgia is the "Peach State", there was apparently no historical peach tree that led to the name.