“In 1936 and 1937 the Highway Department came out and talked to Papa about —told him they wanted to plan a road to go all the way from Tucker right on up to the face of
Stone Mountain, and that would run right through his fifteen hundred acres of land. And they talked about buying the land, they talked about condemnation of the land, to build the road. I was always very close to my papa; we practiced law together for twenty years.
“I respected my papa very much, but I really thought he had lost his mind when I heard him tell these engineer — state engineers — that if they needed roadway to build a road all the way to Stone Mountain, they could have it. Free. I later heard him tell the [iurl defaultattr=
https://www.facebook.com/georgiapower?__tn__=-"]K*F"]Georgia Power[/iurl] Company people, “Free.” Southern Bell people, “Free.” The DeKalb County water people, “Free.” Now, I really thought he had lost his mind.
“He had all of this land here; and yet, when I realized that by giving this land away, he was encouraging the opening up of some fifteen hundred acres of land — which, as you know, is very free out there now — turned out to be a very, very wise move. The road was finished in 1938.
“That was the same year that Papa made an unsuccessful race for governor against Ed Rivers. Gene Talmadge was running against Walter George; Papa was running against Ed Rivers. We held our breaths, just in case Ed Rivers —Governor Ed Rivers —would all of a sudden find out about this road and stop it during this political campaign. Well, I don’t know if he knew about it or didn’t know about it; I don’t know. But he didn’t stop the road. And so Hugh Howell Road was finished in 1938.”
