OZBURN ELECTRIC

Exit 90 in west Covington sends traffic to a busy commer-

cial section of U.S. Hwy. 278. File Photo

By 1971, I-20 was open to Greensboro. In 1972, Newton Countians could travel all the way to the South Carolina state line on I-20.

I-20 then was completed in west Georgia between Douglasville and Villa Rica in 1975 and to the Alabama state line in 1977.

The highway’s origins in Georgia date to 1956 when Congress passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that established the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

States, including Georgia, then launched the largest highway construction program in history, according to the GDOT publication “Historical Context of Georgia Interstates.”

“In 1955, in recognition of the traffic congestion that was gripping American cities, circumferential and distributing highways, like metro Atlanta’s I-285 perimeter road, had been added to the interstate system.

“That was also the year that the Georgia legislature belatedly passed an act allowing for limited-access highways (previously permitted only in Fulton County to facilitate construction of the Atlanta Expressway), which was a federal requirement in order for the states to receive interstate highway funds.”

As a result, Georgia was to receive $840 million over the next 13 years for approximately 1,100 miles of interstate highways, the publication stated. Today, seven current primary interstate highways and eight auxiliary interstates criss-cross Georgia for a total of 1,253 miles.

Happy 200th Covington!

Gov. Herman Talmadge speaks during the dedication ceremony for Newton County Hospital after its construction in 1954. Archives | The Covington News

Decision on future of Confederate statue still with legal system

By TOM SPIGOLON

tspigolon@covnews.com

In the ongoing saga of the fate of Covington’s century-old memorial to Confederate soldiers in the Covington Square, another chapter has recently been written.

Those seeking to stop Newton County’s removal of the monument praised the Georgia Supreme Court’s October ruling that a Covington resident can continue her two-year legal fight to keep the statue standing.

Both Covington resident Tiffany Humphries and the Georgia chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said they were happy a 2020 lawsuit seeking to stop Newton County’s planned removal of the statue would now return to the Superior Court level and be “tried on the facts and the law.”

“Today’s decision is proof that our system works,” Humphries said, after the Oct. 25 ruling was released.

The state’s highest court overturned a state Court of Appeals decision and ruled that Humphries was the only plaintiff who could continue a lawsuit seeking to enjoin Newton County from removing the “To the Confederate Dead of Newton County” statue from the park in the middle of the Covington Square.

The justices ruled that the plaintiffs — including Humphries and the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans — must have had legal standing to sue the county by showing they resided in Newton County and would be harmed in some way by the county government removing a monument in violation of state law.

Among the plaintiffs only Hum-