History

Let’s take it back nearly 400 years ago to the first Thanksgiving. When the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians gathered at Plymouth in 1621, their table looked a little different than ours do now. While no records exist of their exact menu, we know turkey was served…alongside wild hens, seafood and venison.

When gazing at Atlanta’s skyline, the distinct cylindrical shape of the Westin Peachtree Plaza immediately draws the eye. Opened in 1976, the hotel was designed by renowned architect John Portman and, at the time, was the city’s tallest building.

Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Druid Hills looks like a home plucked from a storybook. Henry Hornbostel, responsible for the Williamsburg Bridge in New York, designed the Tudor revival-style home completed in 1920.

The pleasant-looking bridge over Nickajack Creek is anything but, according to those who’ve traveled it. During the 1800s, several children came to their demise near the landmark.

“Betsy, will you meet me, in heaven above…” These are the cries heard throughout the halls of the Historic Lawrenceville Jail, once sung by a slave whose life ended there.

Adjacent to Piedmont Park in Midtown, Grady was one of the first two high schools established under Atlanta Public Schools in 1872.

The Thornton House, named after the man who built it in 1790, is the oldest restored house in Georgia. It has been moved several times throughout its existence, but is currently located in Stone Mountain.

It’s hard to believe the Georgia-Pacific building in busy, corporate downtown Atlanta stands where “Gone With the Wind” premiered in 1939.

In honor of Halloween, this month we’re highlighting some of Atlanta’s real-life haunted places, beginning with The Ellis Hotel.

Opened in 1960, jazz club La Carrousel featured mega-famous headliners such as Aretha Franklin. Its other claim to fame: La Carrousel was Atlanta’s first racially integrated nightclub.

Jacobs’ Pharmacy – the site of the first Coca-Cola sale – was founded in 1879 by Dr. Joseph Jacobs. The downtown Five Points space quickly became one of the city’s most popular pharmacies – which, back then, were more like general stores that also sold medicine.

Coca-Cola and Atlanta began their iconic relationship 130 years ago when Atlanta pharmacist and former Confederate colonel Dr. John Pemberton sold the elixir at Jacob’s Pharmacy.

The old Sears building, built in 1925, had become an abandoned 2.1-million-square-foot ruin. Visit the property now and you’ll fight for a parking space as crowds flock to Ponce City Market’s mix of shops, restaurants, apartments and the playground/beer garden/rooftop with a killer view of our city.

One of three penitentiary facilities created by the 1891 Three Prisons Act, which also created the Federal Prison System, sits just southeast of our city.

Walking down Memphis’ Main Street last week, I was admiring new restaurants, bars and trolley cars. Then I gazed to my right and unexpectedly saw the sign and the motel – feeling an immediate kick to my gut.

When looking at a map, it’s easy to see Virginia-Highland was a planned development, with most of the streets built in grids. One exception is Todd Road, which connects Highland Ave. to Virginia Ave. at a unique angle.

With the exception of crimes and deaths, there was little news coverage of the African-American community in the 1920s in Atlanta. That changed with the founding of Atlanta Daily World in August 1928 (then Atlanta World), the first newspaper to cover news in the black community.

Modern-day Atlanta went through various stages before finally becoming the city we know today. One of these stages started in 1843 when Atlanta was incorporated into the state of Georgia as Marthasville.

Nestled between present-day Ponce City Market and the Ponce portion of the BeltLine used to be “the finest park in the minors.” Ponce de Leon Park was home field for the Atlanta Crackers, Atlanta’s minor league team from 1901-1965, which dissolved when the Braves moved from Milwaukee in 1966.

There is no denying that Atlanta is steeped in history. As the cradle for the civil rights movement, the city was home to leaders who made decisions that changed the world.

Founded in 1976, the Atlanta location of Trader Vic’s has been a favorite with locals and visitors. The tiki-themed restaurant and bar is located in the basement of the Hilton Atlanta.

Atlanta’s oldest and only Catholic hospital was established in 1880 by Sister Cecilia Carroll, who, along with three other nuns, moved from Savannah to Atlanta with the hopes of opening the city’s first permanent medical facility after the Civil War.

The Milledgeville, Georgia, home of famed American author Flannery O’Connor has reopened to the public after nearly a year of restoration and repair.

Following the release of “The Birth of a Nation” and Leo Frank’s lynching, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a revival in 1915 in Atlanta.

While July 4^th has always been a joyous occasion, we haven’t always celebrated the same way. We break down a brief timeline of how it’s changed over the past 242 years.

Cabbagetown’s Fulton Cotton Mill Lofts have only been around about two decades, but the building’s origin dates back to the late 1800s, when immigrant Jacob Elsas started the Fulton Cotton Spinning Company.

In 1916, a former Ford retail sales manager named Ernest Beaudry was already purchasing and selling Ford Model T automobiles on his own when he ran an ad in the Atlanta Constitution announcing the opening of Atlanta’s first Ford dealership.

The Castle has been attracting attention throughout Atlanta ever since its construction began around 1909. The unusual house was designed and built by Ferdinand McMillan, a wealthy agricultural supplier, as his retirement home.

My older brother Mike came home unexpectedly early from college in 1970. His classmates had just shut Princeton down – a show of solidarity with student protests spreading across America.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, Buckhead’s Sardis Cemetery remains historically significant as an example of a standard 19th-century Southern folk burial ground. Although the Sardis Methodist Church building was completed in 1927, the cemetery predates back to 1869.