These are some of the first minutes of city meetings you can find concerning the name Lee in Stockbridge. Yes, we all see the mayor was named R.E.
The streets were dirt. In July 1927 we find, Mr. W. C. Crumbley was instructed to scrape some of the streets with J. R. Hightower’s tractor. Lee St. isn’t mentioned until 1949. Mayor Lee is still Mayor, 22 years later.
In 1956 we had a councilperson named W.J. Lee. I don’t know if they’re from the same family.
So. R.E. Lee was one of the people who electrified Stockbridge. And the proposal is to rename the road next to a STEM school. Never mind you’re erasing Stockbridge history. You’re removing, from the vicinity of the STEM school the name of one of the people that led to the STEM school. A person who physically brought the city into the electric future we live in. Like it or not, you’re here now because 100 years ago a guy named R.E. Lee, quite literally as I read the minutes, committed the city to partnership with the county in paving Highway 42 for the first time. Lee St. wouldn’t be paved until 1968.
I didn’t have anything to say against renaming Railroad St. to, Martin Luther King Senior Scenic Heritage Trail. I would have advised to make the name shorter. But, Alphonso Thomas made history bringing to light something I never knew about Stockbridge. Then in some of his last words called for an “audit before a millage rate increase.”
Renaming a road named after a Stockbridge Mayor’s family? At a very opportune time, when you need any good headline? No. Now you’re using MLK Jr.’s name to cover music business embezzlement. That’s probably not cool.
