Hello. You may remember my work from such classics as "Where did Webb Gin House Road get its name?", "Where did Beaver Ruin Road gets its name?" and "What's a Five Forks-Trickum?"
Today, we venture back down the road name...road.
Reader Jeff Carroll writes: "Who was Steve Reynolds and why does he have a Boulevard named for him?"
Fabulous question, Jeffrey. And an easy one to answer!
Steve Reynolds was a longtime Georgia state senator and Transportation Board chairman who dedicated his professional career to improving Georgia's roadways.
Born in Commerce, he moved to Lawrenceville in the early '60s. Beginning in 1964, he served 14 years in the senate, including 12 as the chairman of the Transportation Committee.
After leaving the senate, he served on the state's transportation b oard for two decades.
"Nobody foresaw in those years the extent of growth that we have today, but Steve did," former Gov. Roy Barnes told The AJC in 2007.
Steve Reynolds Boulevard — a busy 4.6-mile stretch of road off I-85 near Duluth — was made so in 1991. Reynolds died in September 2007 after a two-year battle with lung cancer.
An AJC article at the time referred to him as "a silver-haired power broker who usually had a pinch of tobacco in his lower lip."
"He could be gruff and tough when it came to fights," the article read, "and became best known as a man preoccupied with road building."
Preoccupied, indeed.
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