Forrest Drive

One of Pine Lake's roads is named Forrest-- but after whom, or for what?

Were the name Forest, with one R, it would fit with the themed tree names of the streets on the south side of the lake: Spruce, Pine, Oak, Magnolia, Hemlock, Dogwood. But it has two Rs, so unless it was misspelled seventy-five years ago it was most likely named after Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

As a military leader, Forrest was brilliant, but his reputation is stained-- first by what many historians consider a massacre of black Union soldiers at Fort Pillow, in Tennessee-- and second by his role in the formation of the Ku Klux Klan and in particular his instigation of and participation in "midnight parades, ‘ghost’ masquerades, and ‘whipping’ and even ‘killing Negro voters and white Republicans, to scare blacks off voting and running for office." *

Throughout the South schools, parks, assorted monuments, a city in Arkansas, and even a national forest were named for Forrest, a tradition that continued well into the twentieth century. 

So is Pine Lake's Forrest Road named in honor of Nathan Bedford Forest? I'm not sure there's a definitive answer, but certainly there seems to be no place or other person of that name who would remotely qualify for the honor of a street-naming in a tiny town in north Georgia in the mid 1930s.

I'm not saying one of our streets is definitely named after Nathan Bedford Forrest or suggesting the name be changed. I'm just saying the road was most likely named in Forrest's honor.


* Andrew Ward, River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War (New York: Penguin, 2005), p. 386.

Pine Lake from the Air, 1930s

Above is an aerial photo of Pine Lake, taken sometime before 1936. The year and photographer are unknown, but I imagine developer Carl Shaub hired an aeronaut. Imagine a Stearman biplane or a WWI-surplus Curtss Jenny making a pass over what would one day be our fair city.

The view looks northward at a newly-laid-out grid of mostly empty roads. That's Rockbridge Road running horizontally in the foreground.

Click on the photo to blow it up or download it to your desktop and magnify it with your file viewer.

So Long, Nathan Bedford!

 On April 11, 2011, I raised the issue of Forrest Drive in this blog. Was it named after notorious Confederate general and founder of the Ku Klux Klan Nathan Bedford Forrest? I was certain it was, but, expecting pushback if I said so, I didn't make a stand. I simply raised the issue and said it was likely.

There were no comments on the blog, but I recall a bit of whitesplaining on the e-lists of the day, and some posts about changing the name of the street. Having made my suggestion, I didn't press the issue. I rather wish I had.

The name has finally been changed, and I was thrilled to hear the news.

Pine Lake Masonry: Part I

As I've been walking around the city I've been paying attention to chimneys and house foundations. I've noticed how the stonework seems to have changed with the decades. Here's how:

Pocket Parks

This little park is just across the street from city hall, at the corner of Forrest and Pine. It's a city park.

I just discovered another little park, this one at Dogwood and Hemlock.