Atlanta History

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In 1913, Atlanta’s first luxurious high-rise apartments opened at the corner of Ponce de Leon Avenue and Peachtree Street. The timing of the Ponce de Leon Apartments’ opening was perfect – more Atlantans were moving north as it was becoming less fashionable to live downtown.

Atlanta’s famous African American educator and race leader John Hope was born into an elite black family. His father, a white businessman, and his free-born black mother lived as an unmarried couple because Georgia law prohibited interracial marriages.

Atlanta’s New Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church dates back to 1869 when African Americans began gathering to worship at “camp meetings” at the New Hope Camp Ground.

Before the Galloway School was formed, the prominent Neoclassical building in Chastain Park served as a white poorhouse for the county.

In the early 1950s, the newly formed Atlanta Figure Skating Club was already a U.S. Figure Skating member, but its growing number of members were practicing in a wrestling arena garage.

In the heart of downtown Atlanta stands a 127-year-old, 10-foot bronze statue. The monument was erected to honor Henry W. Grady – the journalist known as the “Spokesman of the New South” who helped reintegrate the Confederate states following the Civil War.

Known as the greatest amateur golfer ever, Bobby Jones was born in Atlanta in 1902. Bobby was named a golf prodigy after entering his first national competition at 14, but his career didn’t truly take off until seven years later when he won the U.S. Open.

In 1895, nearly 800,000 visitors gathered in Piedmont Park for the Cotton States and International Exposition.

According to the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, the Buckhead building that once housed the Southeast’s first library bindery is in peril.