House resolution seeks Veterans Memorial Highway name for Patterson Mill Road

A House resolution would ask state transportation officials to rename Patterson Mill Road from South Carolina Highway 125 in Allendale County to South Carolina Highway 64 in Barnwell County as Veterans Memorial Highway, turning a rural connector into a public tribute to military service.

Rep. Lonnie Hosey filed H. 5664 in the South Carolina House on May 6, and the measure was referred to the House Committee on Invitations and Memorial Resolutions. By May 12, the Senate journal recorded the resolution as having been read the first time and placed on the Local and Uncontested Calendar, a sign that the proposal was moving through the General Assembly rather than sitting as a routine filing.

The request is not yet law. Under the South Carolina Department of Transportation Commission’s road-naming policy, the General Assembly can pass a concurrent resolution while it is in session to name and dedicate a road, bridge or other highway facility, and SCDOT then handles the approved resolution and signage process. If lawmakers complete the action and transportation officials carry it out, the change would show up first in the signs along that corridor.

That matters in Allendale County because Patterson Mill Road sits in the kind of stretch where road markers do more than guide traffic. They help define how people move between counties, how families describe a route to church or a ball game, and how communities mark what they value. The resolution frames the naming as recognition of nearly 250 years of American service and sacrifice, placing veterans at the center of the county’s public landscape.

Hosey, who represents House District 91 and has served in the South Carolina House since 1999, has long represented the Allendale, Barnwell and Orangeburg county corridor that this road crosses. The proposal also fits a familiar pattern in Columbia, where legislators often use concurrent resolutions to attach military and civic meaning to a specific road segment. A similar measure in the 2023-2024 session, H. 5479, sought to name a Barnwell-to-Allendale portion of U.S. Highway 278 Veterans Memorial Highway.

The local symbolism is especially strong because both counties already maintain veteran-centered landmarks. Allendale County’s War Memorial Building was erected in honor of county men who served in World War I, and Barnwell County’s Veterans Memorial Park on U.S. 278 West near the Barnwell County Airport serves as a public tribute site. Against that backdrop, naming Patterson Mill Road would not just alter a roadway label. It would add another visible marker of remembrance to a part of the state where veterans’ service is already part of the civic landscape.