A sign sits off LaFayette Road in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., directing motorists to the Chickamauga Battlefield. A $2 million grant has been obtained to improve LaFayette Road leading to the Chickamauga Battlefield.Chickamauga Battlefield, the nation’s oldest and largest Civil War battlefield, gets about 1 million visitors a year.
Yet its most heavily used entrance, LaFayette Road, is hardly a grand gateway. A vacant bowling alley, fast-food restaurants and strip malls are some of the sights visitors see before they enter hallowed ground.
Now, however, LaFayette Road is due for a $3 million facelift courtesy of the federal government.
Fort Oglethorpe announced Monday it received the funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission to fix up eight-tenths of a mile of LaFayette Road just north of Chickamauga Battlefield.
“It’s going to turn that stretch of road into a showpiece,” Mayor Lynn Long said at a news conference at City Hall.