Federal officials are pausing a plan that could lead to new names for Georgia’s Lake Lanier and Buford Dam after locals objected to changing the monikers of landmarks now named for Confederate soldiers.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a statement Friday announcing the pause pending further guidance from the Department of the Army.
U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican who represents much of northeast Georgia, said he called the Corps of Engineers Friday to express opposition. He said the pause is “a tremendous victory” and that “renamings would have attempted to rewrite history, impose massive burdensome costs on our community and create unnecessary mass confusion.”
Lake Lanier is an enormous reservoir spanning almost 58 square miles (150 square kilometers) and impounding the Chattahoochee River northeast of Atlanta. It was named for poet Sidney Lanier when it was built after World War II. Lanier served as a private in the Confederate army and later wrote “Song of the Chattahoochee,” a poem about the river.
Buford Dam is named after the nearby town of Buford, which takes its name from Lt. Col. Algernon Sidney Buford, who served in the Virginia militia during the Civil War. The Georgia town is named after Buford because he became president of a railroad that helped create the town after the war.
