ATLANTA - Po Biddy Crossroads will be back on the map. So will Hopeulikit and Doctortown, and hundreds of others that were erased.
From Abbottsford to Zetella, the 488 communities wiped from this year's version of the state highway map will be restored, the Georgia Department of Transportation said Wednesday.
The towns were erased from the map after the transportation department decided it wanted a clearer, more legible version of the map to hand out for free at visitors centers and tourism hotspots. But small-town officials were infuriated, and said it was an insult to rural residents.
Vicki Gavalas, the department's spokeswoman, said she regrets that any rural residents felt slighted. "That certainly was not our intent," she said. "Indeed, our only intent was to make the official state map a more easily read resource."
Mapmaking criteria vary by state, and a little housecleaning over time is not unusual. But other states said it is almost unheard of to see hundreds of communities given the boot in a single year. Even Rand McNally, which as North America's biggest commercial mapmaker sells its maps at gas stations and bookstores, said a change of just a dozen place names on its state maps is rare.
Dennis Holt, who led a community effort to restore the name of western Georgia's small town of Hickory Level, celebrated the decision.
"We're glad that they've seen the light and put it back on there," he said. "Our concern is: Will they do this again? We'll be waiting, we'll be watching.
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