Roswell Road was once a forty-foot-wide concrete road known as Roosevelt Boulevard between 1925 and 1927. The road was named for President Theodore Roosevelt, whose mother’s childhood home was Bulloch Hall in Roswell. Roosevelt returned home by way of the Roswell Railroad in 1905. You can read more about Roosevelt’s visit here.
The August 18, 1921, Atlanta Constitution featured an editorial by Mrs. William Lawson Pell, campaigning for the new Roosevelt Boulevard on behalf of the Atlanta City Beautiful Club. A meeting later that month was planned for property owners and interested parties to attend. Colonel George Hope, Arthur Burdett, and Harry Stearns arranged the meeting.
Concrete paving of the road began by September of 1921. It was estimated 2,000 trees would be needed to make the road into an attractive 16-mile boulevard leading from Buckhead to Bulloch Hall in Roswell. Roswell was in Cobb County at the time, so the county’s cooperation was needed. (Atlanta Constitution, Sept. 7, 1921, “Wider Roswell Road in planned”)
In December of 1921, a meeting of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners was held to vote on the road improvement and name change. The board voted unanimously in favor. Many residents and property owners along Roswell Road were present for the meeting. The article claims, “Plans to make Roosevelt Boulevard one of the finest thoroughfares will be started immediately.” Mrs. Peel announced that she had secured trees to be planted every 50 to 75 feet along the road. (Atlanta Constitution, Dec. 8, 1921, “Road named for Roosevelt”)
Also, in 1925 a two-lane, eight arch concrete bridge was built over the Chattahoochee River leading to Roswell. The price of construction was $175,000.
Roosevelt Boulevard and the new bridge were dedicated on July 18, 1925. The Atlanta Constitution reported, “6,000 Georgians attend dedication of Roswell bridge and formal opening of Roosevelt Boulevard to public.” The bridge was christened with river water by Margaret Carpenter, daughter of the Cobb County Road commissioner. A wreath was placed on the bridge in memory of J. D. Wing, by his daughter Virginia Wing.
The research of Jim Perkins, previous author of the Past Tense column in the Dunwoody Crier newspaper, uncovered an entry in the August 3, 1927 minutes of the Fulton County Road and Revenue Commission indicating a proposition to change the name back to Roswell Road had been advertised for four weeks without objections. Therefore, the road returned to its former name of Roswell Road.
By the 1940s, complaints about the condition of the concrete road begin to appear and repaving was completed by 1953.