Jimmy Carter Boulevard had several names

Poet, novelist and screenwriter James Dickey chats with star Burt Reynolds on the set of 1972’s “Deliverance.”

Poet, novelist and screenwriter James Dickey chats with star Burt Reynolds on the set of 1972’s “Deliverance.”

Q: What was the name of the section of Highway 140 in Norcross before it was named Jimmy Carter Boulevard? I can’t find any references to the prior name.

—Joe Bowen, Dunwoody

A: Take your pick.

There was Norcross-Tucker Road. And Northridge Road. Don’t forget Stevens Road. Oh, and Blackwood Road.

Like many roads throughout the country, parts of what we know now as Jimmy Carter Boulevard, had different names.

And sometimes those changed as Gwinnett County built roads and added people through the years.

So the name depended on what stretch you were driving and when you were on it.

A similar question was submitted to the AJC’s Q&A on the News several years ago. I wasn’t writing it then, but a spokesman with the Gwinnett County DOT provided those road names.

I did some digging online and found that a section of Jimmy Carter Boulevard south of Interstate 85 also was named Rockbridge Road. That now splits from Jimmy Carter at the shopping center where Wal-Mart opened a few years ago.

Jimmy Carter Boulevard has been around since shortly after its namesake was elected president in November 1976.

The new name helped eliminate “confusion on the part of motorists, including ambulance drivers and firefighters in emergency situations,” the AJC wrote 11 years ago.

Q: The river in the movie “Deliverance” was called the Cahulawassee, but I know that’s not a real river. What was the Georgia river used for that movie?

A: That canoe trip certainly took an unexpected turn of events.

Northeast Georgia’s Chattooga River was an able stand-in for the movie’s Cahulawassee in “Deliverance,” which starred Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight, and was released in 1972.

“Deliverance” showcased the rapids on the Chattooga, which begins in North Carolina and flows for about 50 miles along the border between Georgia and South Carolina in eastern Rabun County.

The Chattooga is one of the top whitewater rafting spots in Georgia and is the only river in the state on the National Wild and Scenic Rivers list.

Like a lot of movies, “Deliverance” was a novel before it made it to the big screen.

Author James Dickey was a native Atlantan who attended North Fulton High School and gained fame as a poet — he was Poet Laureate of the United States from 1966-68 — before he wrote “Deliverance,” which was published in 1970.

As a poet, Dickey, who died in 1997, is known for “Into the Stone and Other Poems” and “Buckdancer’s Choice,” among other collections. He also wrote “Looking for the Buckhead Boys.”