FIRST SUNDAY LECTURE: The Dixie Highway in Georgia: A Short Trip Down a Long History

Today’s guest speaker was Sandy Lawrence from the Georgia Department of Transportation. She presented a detailed history of the Dixie Highway.

From peaches, pecans and bedspreads to attractions, motels and restaurants, the Dixie Highway allowed travelers to experience southern hospitality and helped shape Georgia’s early twentieth century history. The Dixie Highway began in 1915 as a way to get northern automobile tourists to Miami. The combined divisions of the highway extend almost 4,000 miles from Michigan through Florida, including Georgia which had 1,500 miles of the Highway at its peak in 1926. Georgia Department of Transportation’s Sandy Lawrence reflected on the road that started it all.

Biography:

Sandy Lawrence has an M.A. in Historic Preservation from the University of Georgia and is currently the Cultural Resources Section Manager for the Office of Environmental Services at the Georgia Department of Transportation in Atlanta, Georgia. In this role, she supports the archaeology and history teams at the Department in the performance of their responsibilities under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and the Georgia Environmental Policy Act.

The First Sunday Lecture series is sponsored by the Friends of Smyrna Library and Smyrna Library.