HERE’S A TRIVIA QUESTION: Where in Rome was Old Furnace Road, just off of which the very first Coosa Valley Fair was put on by the Exchange Club of Rome back in 1949?

Don’t look at a map. That name is long gone. It’s now known as Darlington Drive and the old cattle barn still visible along that stretch may well go back to that time when the Georgia State Farmers Market was there.

The fair was held at that location in 1950 as well before moving to a new home at the former Rome Airport in 1951 — which the fair folks gave up voluntarily when the city needed the acreage to woo and win the General Electric plant. They then bought 40 acres on East First Street (now Martin Luther King Boulevard in another street name change) right opposite from Peggy’s, Rome’s most famous tourist attraction of the time — well, for males anyway.

The fair has been there ever since — is there right now going full bore through today and Saturday. Plenty of time left to make new memories for yourself and your family.

Which leaves one question somebody out there may know the answer to: Why was Old Furnace Road called that to start with? The name implies an old furnace being there, along a street that even today has several industrial sites both active and idle ... but no “skunk works” (rendering plant) as there once was.

Anyone know the answer? Even our own Past Times magazine in its 2004 issue (“What’s in a Name”) tracking down the origins of place names throughout Northwest Georgia/Northeast Alabama missed that one.