City Council approved Grover C. Montgomery and Dr. Fayette Sims Jr. as the 2026 Heritage Trail honorees. One built the ring where Ezzard Charles first boxed.

A former mayor who built a boxing ring in his backyard and a doctor who once delivered nine babies in a day are Lawrenceville’s 2026 Heritage Trail honorees. City Council approved them Oct. 26.

The Heritage Trail Medallion Commission recommended Grover Cleveland Montgomery (1887-1967) and Dr. Fayette A. Sims Jr. (1918-1997). The picks went to City Council for approval at its Monday, Oct. 26 meeting, according to the meeting agenda.

Updated Nov. 8: City Council approved both honorees 5-0 on Oct. 26, the draft minutes show. No date for the medallions has been announced. What else the council approved.

The commission reviewed 16 nominations this year. Eleven had been submitted in earlier years without winning a medallion, and five were new. It chose two by majority vote, the agenda report in the council packet said. Commission Chair Dawnya Fisher Lindsey was listed to present them.

Grover Cleveland Montgomery: mayor, tax collector, boxing ring

Montgomery served on City Council in 1922-23 and again in 1929-30. He was mayor from 1931 through 1934, according to the biography the commission submitted with its recommendation.

His public career ran for decades after that:

  • four years as the city’s tax collector
  • Gwinnett County tax collector, a post he held until his death in 1967
  • by 1965, his 17th year and fourth term in the county job

He graduated from Lawrenceville High School and Southern Business University in Atlanta. He then spent 28 years as cashier of Brand Banking Company. The biography also lists First Baptist Church, Masonic Lodge No. 131, the Lawrenceville Kiwanis Club, the town’s brass band and the Lawrenceville Insurance Company.

The detail most readers will remember is the ring. Montgomery played for, and later captained, Lawrenceville’s baseball team. He also built a boxing ring behind his South Perry Street home, where neighborhood boys boxed. One of them was Ezzard Charles, who first put on boxing gloves there at age 8, the biography says.

Charles became world heavyweight champion in 1949. After that, The Atlanta Journal photographed Montgomery beside an old post from the ring.

Dr. Fayette A. Sims Jr.: ‘Doc’

Sims was born in Lawrenceville and delivered at his family’s Pike Street home by Dr. W.P. Ezzard, who is already a Heritage Trail honoree. Ezzard later became his mentor, according to the commission’s biography.

Sims graduated from Lawrenceville High School and attended Emory at Oxford. He graduated with honors from the Emory University School of Medicine in 1941.

In World War II he served as a doctor with the U.S. Army’s 321st Medical Battalion, 96th Infantry Division, in the Pacific, and rose to major. On Okinawa in 1945 he created a modified cannula for a faster way to give whole blood to critically wounded soldiers. Lawrenceville’s News-Herald reported that the method was credited with saving soldiers who might otherwise have been lost, the biography says.

Back home after the war, Sims made house calls and delivered babies at all hours. He once delivered nine in a single day. Known to many as “Doc,” he cared for generations of local families until he retired from medicine in 1983. He also started the Prescription Shop and Sims Oil.

How the Heritage Trail works

The trail is a downtown walking route marked by medallions. It runs from the Fallen Heroes Memorial to Rhodes Jordan Park, with a medallion and a short biography for each person honored. The commission meets once a year to recommend people who helped shape the city’s 205-year history, the agenda report said.

Last year’s honorees were the Loving Aid Society, founded in 1888, and Grover Herman Tanner (1907-1983), a lifelong resident and civic leader. City Council approved them unanimously on Oct. 27, 2025, the city’s Heritage Trail page says.

What it means for you

We will update this story when the city publishes the council’s vote and the date the new medallions go up.