La Fayette Road - History - Main Route

Main Route

During the American Civil War, the dirt LaFayette Road was fought over by the Confederate Army of Tennessee (under Braxton Bragg) and the Federal Army of the Cumberland (under William S. Rosecrans) during the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19 and 20, 1863. The Federal troops defended the road from the west while the Confederates attacked from the east. In early 1864, Gen. James B. McPherson's Federal troops marched southward on the road from Rossville to Rock Spring during the Atlanta Campaign.

The designation of US 27 in Georgia does not appear on Georgia state highway maps until early in 1935; prior to 1935, the route as it runs today is signed as just SR 1, and appears to have been largely unchanged since around 1920. Available maps prior to 1920 show only the railroad line running roughly parallel to US 27, which is still extant and marked today as a CSX Transportation line.

In 1926, a majority of the route did not yet feature completed hard road surface, but was either unimproved but maintained, or consisted of sand, clay, or top soil road surface. Exceptions in 1926 include the immediate areas around Blakely, Columbus, Rome, and north of Fort Oglethorpe. By late in 1932, hard surface improvements had been made to include an additional portion of the route north of Blakely, a short stretch north of Lumpkin, the entire stretch of US 27 from Cussetta, through Columbus, to Chipley, a short portion south of LaGrange, a larger section north of Rome, and the entire stretch of the route from south of LaFayette to the Tennessee state line.

By late in 1936, only two longer stretches of the route, from north of Blakely, through Cuthbert, to Lumpkin, and between LaGrange and Bremen, plus several shorter sections (Bainbridge to Colquitt; south of Cusseta; north of Buchanan; north of Cedartown) remained either unimproved, or were graded and surfaced with sand, clay, or top soil only; more than one-third of US 27 featured hard road surface conditions. The years between 1936 and 1940 saw more significant improvements made, to where more than 90% of US 27 was covered by hard road surface material by October 1940. Only a portion of US 27 south of Lumpkin, a short stretch just south of Cusseta, and a portion north of Carrollton did not yet feature hard surface. By July 1941, only a few miles of US 27, south of and into Cusseta, remained to still be covered by hard surface; however, it was 1944 before the surfacing of the entirety of US 27 with hard surface was completed.

In 1950, Georgia highway maps first show a portion of US 27 as a divided highway, where a stretch of the route from north of Cusseta to Columbus is marked as such. It was 1963 and 1966, respectively, before the next small portions of US 27, north of Fort Oglethorpe to the northern terminus, and south of and into Carrollton, appear as divided highway sections; in addition, the existing stretch south of Columbus was extended to reach Cusseta.