The original Pace's Ferry Road was begun during the
Georgia Gold Rush as a
stage coach bringing people from
Decatur to Vinings, where they could continue on to
gold country. The road went southeast from the river to
Irbyville (later Irby, now Buckhead), then following what is now called "Old Decatur Road", then Lindbergh Drive/LaVista Road, through what is now
Emory University on Clifton Road, along Haygood Drive then North Decatur Road until that hits
Clairmont Road, which was then known as the Shallowford Road. In modern times, Paces Ferry Road (dropping the apostrophe) is still an important east–west route across northern Atlanta.
West Paces Ferry Road runs from the center of Buckhead Village as far west as a dead-end in Paces, while
Paces Ferry Road splits off to the northwest at
Nancy Creek and runs across the river to Vinings in
Cobb County, where it is the address for the world headquarters of
The Home Depot. Beginning at Atlanta Road and going east, it crosses
I-285 at mile 18, and heads into historic Vinings where it crosses the Chattahoochee River. This river crossing is very near the old ferry location, just down from the 1904 bridge that replaced the ferry. That first wooden bridge had been used for pedestrians since being replaced by a concrete one in the early 1970s. At the river, Paces Ferry Road enters
Fulton County and the Atlanta
city limits and continues to its terminus at the western end of Atlanta's
Buckhead area. Here, West Paces Ferry Road continues under I-75 at mile 255, and heads east through some of Atlanta's oldest and wealthiest Buckhead neighborhoods. It serves as the address of the
Georgia Governor's Mansion as well many of Atlanta's other stately older mansions and estates. Unlike many of
metro Atlanta's newer suburbs, the area along this street has maintained most of its forest cover, also making it a pleasant and scenic drive. It emerges from this canopy at the center of Buckhead, meeting
Peachtree Road at the southern end of
Roswell Road. After passing
Georgia 9 and
U.S. 19 (both routed on Peachtree to the south and Roswell to the north), it becomes
East Paces Ferry Road. It stops at Piedmont Road (
Georgia 237), then continues very slightly northward on the other side as a residential street. The tolled section of the
Georgia 400 expressway, finished in 1993, made this a dead-end road in the early 1990s. It resumes on the other side of the tollway, along the southeastern edge of
Lenox Square, the city's first indoor shopping mall. The road then ends east-northeast of Lenox Road at Roxboro Road. ==See also==