Commerce and Industry

The railroads made Atlanta. The same strokes that hammered spikes into crossties beat the breath of life into the newborn town, and the city's present eminence depends upon the hundreds of trains pulsing in and out daily via the steel arteries reaching into the body of the Nation. Atlanta is essentially a city of commerce.

The settlement became a small trading center soon after the stake was driven in 1837 to designate the proposed junction of the various existing railroads with a State line extending to Tennessee. In 1839 John Thrasher, expecting an immediate influx of railroad workers, erected a general store which was the first commercial venture of the community. But the building of the railroads did not go forward as rapidly as had been anticipated, so, in 1841, Thrasher closed his establishment and moved away from the terminus. But his action was too hasty, for the following year the road was completed from the little junction to Marietta.

The first industrial venture, a horse-powered sawmill established by Jonathan Norcross, fared better. When the tracks of the Georgia Railroad neared the town in 1844. Norcross began fashioning construction timbers for roadbeds and bridges and rough slabs for workmen's huts. The little community grew rapidly and before the year was out numbered among its enterprises a grocery store, a general emporium, and, in deference to the femininity of pioneer wives, a bonnet shop.

Early in 1845 a cabinet shop and coffin factory was opened, and on September 15 of that year the first train pulled into town over the Georgia Railroad from Madison. A year later, when the Macon & Western's first train arrived from Monroe, Atlanta's commercial life had definitely begun. Cotton, then as now, was the leading product of the State, and the railroads quickly made Atlanta an important distribution point for this staple. Warehouses were erected for storing the cotton until sold, when it was transferred to the port city of Savannah or to inland manufacturing centers. Farmers brought or shipped their crops and livestock to town and an extensive barter trade developed. Cloth was exchanged for corn and shoes for syrup, and thus it happened that all early retail stores, regardless of their specializations, also carried groceries and produce.

William N. White gives a graphic picture of Atlanta's commerce and industry in 1847, eventful year of its incorporation. "The city," he wrote, "now contains 2,500 inhabitants; thirty large stores; two hotels; three newspapers; 187 buildings have been put up this summer within eight months and more are in progress... The cotton picking season has just commenced and it comes in at the rate of 50 or 60 wagon loads a day. This is nothing to what it will be in December, and it will continue until spring; like the butter up north it is brought here to market from places 100 miles distant. Grain and all such supplies come down from the Cherokee country... Business here is increasing daily. Several thousand dollars worth per diem are purchased of cotton, corn, wheat, etc. New stores are continually being opened... there is no product of Georgia which cannot be conveyed to Atlanta in three days time." The stores to which White referred housed such businesses as clothing and drygoods, jewelry, machine shops, wagon-works, groceries, and banking.

Real estate was being promoted extensively, White reporting that: "'I have been out looking at lots at various prices, from $20 to $400 per lot all within the limits of the city. On Whitehall Street a lot 20x40 feet would be worth twice that sum... one can hardly make money as fast as property rises in this place.

Diversification of industry was furthered by Richard Peters, who erected a gristmill in 1848. Since his was the only such mill in the vicinity, it was often necessary for the pioneers to wait long hours before their corn or wheat could be ground, and a visit to the mill was often made an all-day occasion. Women would bring their knitting and settle themselves comfortably under shade trees where they could keep a watchful eye on the children; the men would gather in little groups and discuss crops and politics while awaiting their turn at the stone.

By 1850 street peddlers were being licensed, and at one meeting in that year the city council passed an ordinance regulating the practice whereby slaves sold farm produce and merchandise for their masters on the streets of the city.

This decade of the fifties was commercially and industrially significant. The tracks of the Western & Atlantic had been extended to Chattanooga, thereby opening new market areas. Banks, tanneries, shoe shops, gins, and factories for the manufacture of furniture, carriages, and freight cars were erected. But the arbitrary freight rates imposed by the railroads operated in such a manner as to affect adversely the Atlanta trade. Business men of older Southern cities, jealous of Atlanta's progress, used the influence of their controlling interest in the railroads to see that goods shipped to Atlanta from Northern cities cost the local merchants about 100 per cent more than other Southern cities were required to pay. This same disparity in rates applied to freight shipped from Atlanta to other points in the South. In further discrimination against the growing city, railroad schedules were so timed that trains arrived in Atlanta at late hours of the night with no stopover privileges. The resulting loss to Atlanta merchants was estimated as being in excess of $400,000 during the period from 1853 through 1858. Local merchants, owning no controlling interest in the railroads, were powerless to alleviate these transportation difficulties, and the condition was not improved until long after the War between the States.

Still, the town grew. New banks were organized, and factories manufacturing farm implements and construction materials were erected. Luxury industries established during the fifties included those for the manufacture of cigars, soda waters, candies, and cakes. In 1855 a gas plant was built, and on Christmas night of that year Atlanta's first gas lights were turned on.

The growth of the town, though amazingly rapid, had been basically sound, and its strategic location and excellent climate were two permanent advantages. Consequently, by 1860 Atlanta had surpassed almost all other Southeastern cities as a financial, industrial, and commercial center. So great had been the city's progress that even the outbreak of the War between the States did not immediately slow its momentum. On the contrary, Atlanta burst into a new frenzy of activity. Many established factories secured contracts with the Confederate Government for the manufacture of ordnance supplies, and new plants were built for the purpose. Shifts worked day and night turning out tents, pistols, swords, harness, saddles, and shoes. Rolling mills were quickly built for the manufacture of heavy guns, cannon, steel rails, and railway car equipment. Goods brought through the Union blockade were sold in Atlanta stores, and the city was crowded by foreigners who came in to offer their technical advice on the manufacture of military equipment. In 1862 the city became the South's largest army supply base and, because of its increasing military importance, was placed under martial law. As the war advanced, wealthy plantation owners of the vicinity, feeling that the city offered more security, brought their families to Atlanta and established residence. Business boomed, but the pinch of war was beginning to be felt in the rise of commodity prices. Then, in 1864, came General Sherman, to lay siege and capture the town and to raze it by fire before beginning his relentlessmarch to the sea. All but 400 of Atlanta's 3,8oo houses and commercial buildings were destroyed.

Reconstruction, however, was rapid. Temporary shelters were quickly erected to store the goods which canny merchants were collecting, and as soon as the less damaged buildings were repaired, a business on a small scale began. Federal soldiers and carpetbaggers jammed the streets, and many new names appeared on Atlanta storefronts. The rebuilding of old railroad lines and the beginning of new ones hastened the city's resumption of its commercial leadership. By 1870 Atlanta's population, which had numbered only 12,000 in 1864, had risen to 22,000.

The decade of the seventies was one of great expansion. Northern money poured into town, banks were reopened, and, as an indication of the growing size of the town, the horsecars of the first street railway made their appearance. The business census of 1875 listed 7 banks, 1 bond broker, 17 cotton brokers, and 63 life and fire insurance agents, showing that the city's position in finance was equal to its commercial and industrial supremacy. In the same year a count showed 32 boot and shoemakers, 7 carriage and wagon factories and dealers, 13 wholesale drug companies, 10 wholesale dry-goods firms, 8 flour mills, 5 foundries, and 7 furniture factories and dealers. A score of trains sped to and from Atlanta daily, bringing in raw materials and taking out finished products.

The decade of the eighties was notable for the International Cotton Exposition which was held in 1881, calling the Nation's attention to Atlanta's prestige in Southern commerce and industry. Scores of huge buildings were erected and thousands of exhibits were displayed. The exposition afforded the city great publicity and attracted from other sections of the country much money which was immediately invested in Atlanta enterprises. One direct result of the exposition was the establishment of the Exposition Cotton Mills in 1882. The main building of the exposition was converted into a factory which employed five hundred workers operating thirty thousand spindles and seven hundred and fifty looms.

During this period and until the turn of the century, Atlanta's industries very nearly eclipsed its importance as a commercial center. The development of steam power brought about a great urbanization of industry. The building of factories near waterways was no longer necessary; it was sufficient that they be located near railroads making available a large coal supply and affording easy distribution of products. Atlanta exactly filled these requirements, with the result that during the decade about 20 new factories were built for the manufacture of farm implements, cottonseed oil products, construction materials, textiles, furniture, glass, pianos, and all sorts of machinery. Also during the eighties, Atlanta's livestock market, which had its beginnings before the war, expanded to become the greatest mule market in the Nation. This was the era of patent medicines, and several companies began the manufacture of these bottled panaceas in Atlanta.

The year 1886 was significant for the beginning of a soft drink venture that has carried the name of Atlanta around the world. In May of that year J.S. Pemberton, a manufacturing chemist, perfected his formula for a soft drink and sold it under the trademark "Coca-Cola." The following year he disposed of two-thirds interest in the business to George Lowndes and Willis Venable, who dispensed the drink from the soda fountain of Jacobs Drug Store at Five Points. Asa G. Candler, a wholesale druggist, purchased controlling interest in the business in April 1888, and soon organized the Coca-Cola Company for the manufacture and promotion of the beverage. In Coca-Cola's meteoric rise to popularity Candler and his associates amassed a fortune. In 1919 the Candlers sold their interest, and the purchasers reorganized and expanded the business to such an extent that the product is now sold in more than 70 countries.

During the nineties several new railroads were extended into Atlanta, and a number of terminal companies made the city their headquarters. By the end of the decade 44 railroads maintained Atlanta offices, and more than one third of all the freight entering the State was unloaded in the city.

The outstanding event of the decade was the Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895. This display surpassed even the former exposition of 1881 and again served to advertise to the world that, although it was an inland city, Atlanta was one of the Nation's pivotal transportation centers. The response was immediate; national manufacturing and financial corporations established branch offices in the city, and it was during this decade that Atlanta's first skyscrapers were erected.

With the turn of the century the development of long-distance transmission of electric power drew industries away from urban areas. Consequently, during the first decade of the 1900's there was a lessening of the number of factories established in the Atlanta area. But what the city lost in manufactories was more than compensated for by the concentration of branch offices of national concerns. Virtually all Southeastern sales of nationally distributed goods were made through Atlanta district offices, resulting in a great increase in the city's bank clearings, postal receipts, and freight handlings. Almost all of the present railroads had been established, and Atlanta became nationally recognized as the commercial and financial center of the South.

During the decade of 1910 Atlanta became increasingly conscious of its metropolitan potentialities, and many factors combined to bring them to realization. Building had lagged considerably behind population and it now became necessary to erect new residences and business houses. The Healey, Hurt, and Transportation (now Western Union) Buildings, three of the city's first modern office structures, were erected. Two large department stores were constructed, and among the new hotels were the Ansley, Winecoff, Imperial, and Cecil (now the Atlantan). Two automobile assembly plants were located in the city, those of the Ford and Hanson Motor Companies. Recognition of Atlanta's financial leadership was signified by the establishment of the bank of the Sixth Federal Reserve District in the city.

In 1917 a devastating fire destroyed more than 60 city blocks with a property loss of $5,000,000. This created a serious housing problem as, by this time, the country had entered the World War and all available labor in the city was employed in building barracks at Fort McPherson and Camp Gordon. Not for several years could the burned area be rebuilt. But at the cantonments there was great construction activity, local industries were receiving large war orders, and workers were well paid.

The impetus of lavish spending created by the war carried the city on a wave of prosperity well into the twenties. Civic leaders began publicity drives to "put Atlanta on the map," and these drives reached a climax in the middle of the decade when the city experienced its greatest expansion in the growth of office buildings, banks, stores, real estate developments, street mileage, and population. This expansion was largely due to the activity of the Forward Atlanta Commission, organized by the Chamber of Commerce. During the four-year period ending in 1929, the commission spent almost $1,000,000 advertising Atlanta on a Nation-wide scale. Full-page advertisements were bought in leading trade and commercial magazines and papers, and thousands of pamphlets were sent to industrial leaders throughout the country. The effects of the campaign are still operative, but an immediate result was the establishment of many new concerns in the Atlanta area. It was also during this decade that many large Atlanta business houses became affiliated with Northern concerns and, through mergers, numbers of chain stores began to appear in the city.

During the early thirties Atlanta experienced its share of the Nation-wide depression. Many businesses failed, stores closed, and the proportion of unemployed mounted. Some concerns survived the trying years by merging with larger organizations. Many small specialty shops opened, hoping to succeed where more conservative general firms had failed. The majority of them, however, were but short-lived. For about two years there were so many vacant stores in downtown Atlanta that the Chamber of Commerce undertook a program urging the remaining business houses to rent the vacant store windows fora display of their goods, thereby enabling the city literally to keep up its front.

With the instigation of various Federal Government emergency bureaus, buying power increased and business slowly revived. Extensive slum clearance projects were financed and many public improvements were made with Federal funds in Atlanta. By the end of the decade a fair amount of business stability was evident and private concerns again were willing to invest large sums in the expansion of building and production.

The impetus given commerce and industry by the building program of the national defense agencies began to be felt in 1940, when many orders for materials were placed with Atlanta firms. On the site of Camp Gordon, World War cantonment, the army began the construction of the Lawson General Hospital, and the navy started the building of an aviation base for the preliminary training of its fliers and those of the marine corps. During the following year the army bought 1,500 acres of land, 9 miles southeast of Atlanta on State 42 and undertook the erection of 14 large concrete warehouses, costing between ten and fifteen million dollars. At these storehouses, which will be called the Atlanta General Depot, supplies will be bought and stored for the signal, medical, quartermaster, and engineering corps and other branches of the army. All three of the defense projects are to serve the entire southeastern part of the United States.

The Nation-wide speed-up of industry finds Atlanta admirably equipped with facilities to maintain its commercial leadership. Its pre-eminence as a transportation center is assured by the 15 main lines of 8 railroad systems, by 8 major airlines, and by 75 highway freight lines operating over a network of paved roads radiating in all directions. Atlanta's railway express shipments are more per capita than those of any other city in the Nation. The city ranks as the third largest telegraph center in the world, eighth among cities of the United States in airmail volume, thirteenth in bank clearings ($3,009,375,000 in 1939), eighteenth in postal receipts, and fourth in the amount of fire insurance premiums cleared annually.

Atlanta's location is such that a population of 14,500,ooo lives within a radius of 300 miles of the city. This easy accessibility to the consumer accounts for the more than 2,500 branch factories, warehouses, and division offices which are located in the city. For the same reason Atlanta is an ideal gathering point for Southeastern sales forces, and, in 1939, 495 conventions were held in the city with an attendance of 134,000 delegates. In Atlanta and its environs are about 900 factories manufacturing more than 1,500 commodities, the more important being textiles, food products, paper containers, drugs and chemicals, and furniture. In 1939 the value of products manufactured within Atlanta proper was $165,729,836, and the total sales of Atlanta's retail and wholesale stores amounted to $637,394,000. The city has 47 prominent office buildings with a total square footage of 2,748,619 feet, making it the first city in the Nation in per capita office space.

Contents