county administrator. Later, with Barrett's endorsement, the General Assembly approved the creation of the county manager post, headed initially in 1983 by Jim Miller. Barrett left office on the last day of 1984. Just a few months later he died at 62. Cobb's population grew from about 150,000 when he took office to about 350,000 when he departed, and the tax digest expanded from $277 million to $4.2 billion. The year before Barrett left office, the commission renamed Roberts Road in his honor. Once a country lane, it had recently been converted into a divided highway running by the future site of Town Center mall. In 1983, it became Ernest W. Barrett Parkway. Businessman and columnist Jasper Dorsey wrote that “the Barrett years for Cobb have been historic because of his superb leadership.... I've never witnessed a better county administration than Barrett's, nor a more forward-looking one. It is also one that enriched the man not at all.” Cobb, no doubt, would have grown without him. In the past the county had enjoyed great leaders, and Barrett shared power with talented contemporaries. But virtually every statesman of that generation, in public and private, credited Barrett with the pivotal role in Cobb's transition to a modern suburban county. By Dr. Thomas A. Scott professor of history, Kennesaw State University The Barrett family owned a large portion of land southeast of Kennesaw, which is now Town Center at Cobb, a regional shopping center and now a major shopping and business district in north-central Cobb. Interstate 75 and later Interstate 575 now both cross this land as well, and Noonday Creek runs east and then north across it. Barrett Parkway, in front of the mall, bears his name and was extended west and southwest of U.S. 41 during the 1990s to connect with Ridgeway Road (now Barrett Parkway) to State Route 120 (Dallas Highway, west of Marietta). The name was later extended in 2003 down Ridgeway and Villa Rica Road. External links Ernest W Barrett Kennesaw State University people County commissioners in Georgia (U.S. state) People from Kennesaw, Georgia 1922 births 1985 deaths People from Cobb County, Georgia 20th-century American politicians United States Army personnel of World War II