Eurith Dickinson Rivers was governor of Georgia from 1937 to 1941 and actively supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Program. His leadership produced Georgia’s first Department of Public Welfare, free school books, the State Highway Patrol, and modernization of the state highway system. Born in Arkansas, Rivers married Lucile Lashley in 1914 and moved with his family to Milltown, later Lakeland, in 1920 to practice law. He is buried in Lakeland. Built in 1940 on the shores of Banks Lake, the ranch style house designed by Frank Byrd was relocated to this site in the early 1980s.