41. EAST POINT 

(1,046 alt., 12,403 pop.), in Fulton County, six miles southwest of Atlanta on US 29, is a separate municipality that has become the leading industrial center of the vicinity. On the east side of the principal street, which is paralleled by the Atlanta & West Point Railroad tracks, rises an uneven line of industrial buildings with their high tanks and smoking chimneys. Opposite this line of structures, on the western side of the street, is a row of stores beyond which is a residential area with small parks, brick and frame cottages, and the handsome red-brick city hall with tall white columns.

In the summer of 1864, the site of the town was important in the defense of the Confederate supply lines to the besieged city of Atlanta. The town, incorporated in 1887, was given its name because it was at that time the eastern terminus of the Atlanta & West Point Railroad. A buggy works and a wagon factory formed its industrial nucleus, which has grown to include cotton mills, saw works, machine shops, and chemical companies.

In 1940 East Point came into national prominence as the scene of a series of night-rider floggings, one of which caused the death of a victim. Although the men charged with implication in the outrages were tried merely as individuals and no formal charges were made against any organized body, the publicity resulted in a ruling by the Ku Klux Klan that none of its members could appear in public masked.

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