6. The FULTON COUNTY COURTHOUSE,
SE. corner Pryor and Hunter Sts.,
is a nine-story building constructed of terra cotta and Georgia
granite, with a row of fluted engaged columns that rise to the height
of five stones above the three arched entrances. Fulton County
maintains here seven branches of the Superior Court, five branches of
the Civil Court, two branches of the Criminal Court, and one Court of
Ordinary, in addition to the various administrative offices of the
county agencies. The marble halls of the interior are usually crowded
with white and Negro citizens making tax returns, attending sessions in
one of the 15 courtrooms, securing licenses, recording transactions, or
idly standing in groups discussing politics.
Plans for the construction of this courthouse were made as early as
1907) when a tax was levied and produced more than $100,000. Additional
funds were raised in subsequent years, and A. Ten Eyck Brown, an
Atlanta architect, was engaged to make a study of courthouse
construction in the leading cities throughout the country. Brown later
drew the design in collaboration with Morgan & Dillon, a local
architectural firm. The building, which cost more than $1,500,000
complete with furnishings, was begun in August 1911> and was ready
for occupancy in August 1914.
Fulton County covers an area of 548.25 square miles along the
Chattahoochee River, with an extreme length of 60 miles and a width
varying from 2.5 to 20 miles. Although it ranks twentieth in size, a
population of 392,886 makes it the most thickly settled county in the
State. In addition to Atlanta, the county contains eight incorporated
towns (Alpharetta, College Park, East Point, Fairburn, Hapeville,
Palmetto, Roswell, and Union City) and many thickly populated suburban
areas. Administrative affairs are directed by a board of five
commissioners who are chosen for four-year terms by popular vote.
Outside the environs of industrial and commercial Atlanta, there is
in Fulton County an extensive agricultural region of red-clay soil
interspersed with ridges and bottoms of fertile gray loam. On more than
3,000 farms 4,500 growers, 65 per cent of them tenants, raise
"everything from cotton to orchids." The county ranks twelfth in the
State in the production of cotton, which is the leading money crop.
Corn, covering the greatest acreage, is second in importance, while
truck produce ranks third. Dairy products and poultry find a ready
market in Atlanta, and, in order to provide food for livestock, many
acres are planted in peas, alfalfa, velvet beans, and other
hay-producing crops. There are still many wooded tracts, although the
development of residential suburbs has been rapid.
Most of the land included in Fulton County was opened to settlement
in 1821, when the chiefs of the Creek Nation ceded this territory to
the Federal Government in a treaty signed at Indian Springs. The
following year the area was included in the newly created DeKalb
County, and a few men cleared land for widely scattered farms. In order
to encourage settlement further, the inferior court ordered roads cut
through the region to connect these isolated settlements with
established trading posts.
After building houses and planting crops, the first activity of the
early citizens was the organization of churches. The first was the
Mount Gilead Methodist Church, organized in the southern part of the
county on April 24, 1824, and the second was the Utoy Baptist Church,
organized near what is now Fort McPherson on August 15 of the same
year. The Utoy Church joined the Yellow River Baptist Association in
1825 and immediately became prominent in the affairs of that religious
body.
During the 1840's the settlement around the terminus established for
the railroads grew rapidly. Immigrants came from other sections of
Georgia, from North and South Carolina, and even from such distant
States as Pennsylvania and Maine. Many of these were industrial men who
lived in town and bought near-by farms to supplement their business
enterprises, while others were farmers who settled well away from the
railroads.
This influx of people soon created the need for a county seat more accessible
than Decatur, which was reached with difficulty over poor roads.
Consequently Fulton was created from DeKalb by a legislative act
approved on December 20, 1853, and amended on February 21, 1856, when
one land lot was transferred back to the parent county. Atlanta was
made the seat of the new county. The commissioners, without funds to
build a courthouse, acquired administrative offices in the city hall
which was at the time being erected on the site of the present State
capitol.
Fulton County shared little in the antebellum civilization that
prevailed in the plantation belt of the coastal plain. Urban life was
primarily commercial and centered about the railroads. The rural
section was settled chiefly by owners of small farms and by tenants who
cultivated the farms of the townspeople. The first census of the county
(1860) reported a population of 14,427, of which only 2,955 were
slaves.
After the War between the States the population increased at a
phenomenal rate. Business enterprises multiplied as Northern
capitalists recognized the commercial advantages of Atlanta, and the
transfer of the State government from Milledgeville in 1868 attracted
still more newcomers. By 1880 the population was 49,137, and the county
officials, cramped by limited quarters in the city hall, felt that the
county was sufficiently prosperous to erect a courthouse. Consequently,
a red-brick structure was begun on the site of the present courthouse
in 1881 and completed the following year.
Industry and commerce far outstripped agricultural development
despite the fact that a series of land transfers greatly augmented the
area of the county. The first such boundary change was made in 1872,
when 6 land lots were added to Fulton from Campbell County; a second
was effected in 1916 by the addition of 11 more lots from Campbell; and
a third was made in 1927 when 35 lots were transferred from Milton
County. The most substantial increase, however, took place on January
1, 1932, when all of Campbell and Milton were absorbed into Fulton
County. This merger so isolated the Roswell district of Cobb County
that it too was incorporated in Fulton during the latter part of the
same year. The total acreage gained was 361.25 square miles: 211 from
Campbell, 145 from Milton, and 5.25 from Cobb.
Throughout this period industrial development continued at a rapid
pace. Many factories were built and assembly and distribution plants
were established within Atlanta and its suburbs. Although the
courthouse had been fashioned to serve forever, the enlarged functions
of government soon made the facilities of the building inadequate. In
1911 the county records were moved into rented offices in the Thrower
Building and remained there until the present courthouse was erected on
the site of the old.
Recommendations have been made in recent years for combining certain
city and county departments to avoid duplication of services,but no
such changes have been made. The two governments operate as entirely
separate entities in their neighboring buildings.
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