Old Coffee Road was the earliest vehicular and postal route of this section, running north and south from Swain's Ferry on the Ocmulgee River to the Florida Line by way of today's Lax, Nashville, Cecil, Barwick and Thomasville. The thoroughfare was opened in 1823 by order of the state under the superintendence of General John Coffee and Thomas Swain. Near this place, it was crossed by the Columbus-Saint Mary's Road, which the state opened in the mid-1830's and which in its day was the longest thoroughfare in Georgia.