The beginnings of the Athens Perimeter Highway were in 1963. The new freeway was one of the first built outside of Atlanta and was known as GA 350. GA 350 extended from U.S. 129/GA 15 (present-day GA 15 Alt) east to U.S. 29/GA 8. The plan was to extend the route west to U.S. 29/78 and east to a new cloverleaf interchange at Old Hull Road that would later become a new alignment for U.S. 29, GA 8 and later GA 72. The road to the east was shown as completed as early as 1964, but was not fully completed until 1967. Click here to see a more detailed map of GA 350 in 1964.

Compare the first appearance of GA 350 in 1963 on the left to the extension to proposed GA 72 in 1964 on the right.

In 1966, GA 350 was decommissioned in favor of relocating GA 8 as the state designation for the entire by-pass. Early 1967 had the entire route complete along the north side of Athens, making a full by-pass for U.S. 29, despite the fact that U.S. 29 remained along the former route through Athens with GA 8 Business added in the place of GA 8 with GA 106 on the remainder. GA 72 was also extended to the freeway portion of GA 8 in 1967, indicating the future plans to extend GA 72 along another quadrant of the Perimeter that had still not taken shape. However, part of the route had been completed as early as 1970 between Milledge Avenue (present GA 15 Alt) and College Station Road, but was not shown on the GDOT maps in the era.

By 1975, more of GA 72 was completed to U.S. 78, but still not shown on the map. In fact, the proposed GA 72 did not appear on the map until 1977 and only as a proposed route. By 1980 or 1981, the missing link between U.S. 78 and College Station Road was completed and GA 72 was designated and fully open to traffic to Milledge Avenue. This now created a mostly freeway by-pass for most of Athens with exception to an at-grade intersection with Olympic Drive that remains to this day.

Note here that GA 350 is now GA 8. GA 72 is also proposed south of the original GA 350, ending at U.S. 129/441. Parts of the proposed route were already complete, but did not have full connectivity and were thus not part of GA 72 at the time (1977 GDOT Map).

Additional work on the loop was held off for several more years, and the last section to be built differed from the rest of the loop in that it would travel in part through Oconee County. Originally designated as GA 732, work began on the last segment in the mid-1980's with the new section first appearing on the map in 1984. Work on the remaining section was completed in 1987. The result was a completed loop of all different styles and engineering styles due to a project that took nearly 25 years to complete.

The map on the left shows the final part of the Athens Perimeter proposed as GA 732, while the map on the right shows the completed highway divided up among GA 8, GA 10 and GA 72. Note that several of the highways through Athens, including GA 106 along Old U.S. 129, have been decommissioned compared to the older maps shown. The remaining black line through Athens is GA 15 Alt. GA 10 Loop would be designated by 1990 or later (1986 and 1988 GDOT Maps).

The completed loop posed a problem: one road with three different route designations. The east side of the loop was GA 72, south side GA 10 and the north side GA 8. Even though this was the logical plan, this made the route pretty confusing when configuring in that every U.S. route passing through Athens followed the loop as well. Thus, by the early 1990's, the entire loop was redesignated as GA 10 Loop, unifying the route with a single highway number, which was precisely what the GA 350 designation was supposed to accomplish! When GA 10 Loop was created, GA 72 was truncated back to where it joins U.S. 29 with GA 8 and 10 also restored through the center of Athens.

In the past few years, the issues of a road that took so long to complete has resulted in a need to bring greater uniformity to a highway that has such heavy traffic. Underpasses along the older north end were widened, signs were all upgraded with new interstate-like exit numbers and numerous safety improvements were made. The lone at-grade intersection is also planned to be reconstructed into an interchange, completing limited access along the entire length of the freeway.