George C. Spence, Sr.: The Man Who Would Profit from the Proposed Roswell Dam

Atlanta, Georgia, a growing city in the 1920s and 1930s, had a thirst for water, power, and navigation that could not be quenched by its present infrastructure systems. City leaders and influential Atlantans, growing increasingly alarmed for the capital city’s future amid population and industry growth, found themselves looking for solutions that would facilitate ongoing development in Atlanta while addressing the lack of infrastructure that hindered progress. Thus, two decades prior to the groundbreaking of Atlanta's federally backed water reservoir above Buford, Georgia, an early solution was proposed, a dam and accompanying lake north of the city at Roswell. Journeys into the archives of Georgia newspapers from the 1920s through the 1940s detailed the forgotten history of the proposed Roswell, Georgia reservoir, revealing a man who had a vested interest in the site: George C. Spence, Sr. An influential Atlanta attorney, Spence, Sr., leveraged his position in society to lobby for this project, which would have been built in his literal yard. This project examines who Spence is, public and private motivations for the construction of a reservoir at Roswell, how a dam at Roswell could have changed the topography of northern metropolitan Atlanta, and why the Roswell site was abandoned.