History

After Eli Whitney's invention of the gin in 1793, there was an increasing tendency among Southern planters to sacrifice food crops and livestock to the cultivation of cotton. Cotton brought money, whereas food could be bought; but transportation of Western meat and grain to Georgia's principal cotton section, necessitating travel over several different water routes and hauling over bad roads, was slow and expensive. River traffic was uncertain since increasing settlement and cultivation along the banks had clogged the channels, and land travel was impossible when heavy rains slimed the red-clay roads. The conviction grew that railroads were the only solution to the problem, and in 1826 Hamilton Fulton, State chief engineer, and Wilson Lumpkin went so far as to survey a route from the Tennessee River to the South Atlantic seaboard. Finally in December 1836, the State legislature created the Western & Atlantic Railroad to run from the Tennessee River to the southeastern bank of the Chattahoochee River and continue to "some point," defined in an amendment the next year, "not exceeding eight miles, as shall be most eligible for the running of branch roads to Athens, Madison, Milledgeville, Forsyth, and Columbus."

Growth of the little settlement around the terminus was sure to come, for it formed a gateway to the hardly accessible inlands on the south and an egress for commerce to the north and west. Georgians on the whole, however, had little faith in its development. Even as late as 18471 just before it became the City of Atlanta, the town's people themselves were dubious of its future. At that time Colonel Stephen H. Long, chief engineer of the State railway, predicted that after completion of the railroads the town would dwindle to little more than a crossroads store and a blacksmith shop.

There are few records concerning the site before transportation to the cotton belt became of vital concern. It is known that during the Revolution there was a Cherokee Indian town, The Standing Peachtree, on the south bank of the Chattahoochee River approximately seven miles from the present Five Points, and it was reported that the remaining land south of the river had been won, by the Creeks from the Cherokees in a succession of ball games. According to Revolutionary War records of August 1, 1782, a secret agent was commissioned to investigate rumors of friction between these two tribes near the town. It is from The Standing Peachtree that Peachtree Creek and Atlanta's famous Peachtree Street, get their names. One version of the name's origin states that the Indians met under a "pitch tree" at the spot for games and conferences and used pitch from the tree to caulk their canoes; another declares that it was derived from a large peach tree growing on a near-by Indian mound (near the present pumping station). In 1813, during the Creek War, Lieutenant George R. Gilmer with 22 white recruits was sent to establish a fort near the site, which, by his own statement, was between 30 and 40 miles beyond the frontiers of the State. After he left, an important Indian trading post was established at the spot, which was crisscrossed by numerous Indian trails. In 1821 the legislature authorized that rentals of land in Fayette County be paid at The Standing Peachtree, and the earliest postal records indicate that the place was a post office in 1826. The first ferryman on the Chattahoochee River, J.M.C. Montgomery, was postmaster.

According to Henry Stringfellow, who came astride an Indian pony from Alabama over the Etowah Trail, the present Alabama Street was a primitive footpath in 1820. Scattered over the region were small corn patches, the only agricultural efforts of the Indians, who subsisted principally by fishing in the Chattahoochee and hunting Pin the canebrakes along its banks and in the near-by "jungles." For four years Stringfellow lived among the Indians. Here he joined in a green corn dance held upon the return of a hunting party, and on the footpath he witnessed an internecine battle between factions of the Creeks, who had split after the signing of the Treaty of 1821, in which the section was ceded to the Federal Government,

Six miles east of the spot a white settlement was incorporated in 1823 as the town of Decatur and seat of the year-old DeKalb County. Between that time and 1836, Charner Humphries established his Whitehall Tavern two and a half miles southwest of Five Points.

Although three public roads ran through the site of the future railroad terminus, the immediate vicinity was a wilderness and there were few travelers other than Indians going on hunting expeditions or passing through to the trading post at The Standing Peachtree. When "General" Abbott Hall Brisbane, assistant surveyor to Colonel Long, came to the site in 1837, the only inhabitant he found was Hardy Ivy, who was the first settler in the section that is now downtown Atlanta. Ivy, a farmer, had contracted to pay "in produce as he could spare it" for 200 acres of land in Canebrake, as the wooded section was then known. He had erected his hewn-log cabin near the present corner of Ivy Street and Auburn Avenue, and his bones, it is said, lie beneath the hard-packed ground of a parking lot just west of Ivy Street.

In the summer or early fall of 1837 Brisbane drove the stake, probably under the present Broad Street viaduct, marking the southeastern terminus of the projected railroad. Actual construction of the road was not begun until 1838, but a few settlers moved immediately to the designated terminus in order to take advantage of the potential commercial and land benefits. Interest aroused in the site by the legislative act flagged from time to time as the exhaustion of funds for the Western & Atlantic deterred progress on the road, and for several years the population fluctuated markedly. By the fall of 1839 there were in the village only a few impoverished families living in dirt-floored shanties, an old woman and her daughter, and John Thrasher, the village's first merchant and the grading contractor for the Monroe Railroad (Macon & Western) branch. Affected by the Nation-wide depression, the stock of that road dropped to ten cents on the dollar. "Cousin John" Thrasher, who was paid partly in the stock for work on the Monroe embankment (near the present Terminal Station), took his holding to McDonough and traded it for a gold watch, a carriage, and merchandise for his commissary. In July 1841, after selling his land for four dollars an acre, he abandoned his store and disgustedly shook the red dust of the terminus from his high-heeled boots for, as he thought, all time.

The prospect of completion of the Western & Atlantic line to Marietta, however, apparently inspired the sale of real estate at a public auction in 1842. On Christmas eve the engine Florida, brought the 65 miles from Madison on a 16-mule-drawn wagon, was set up and started near the Whitehall Street crossing on its trip over the virgin track. An excited crowd of 500 from Decatur and the surrounding section gathered in the village, which now consisted of about 6 houses huddled at the present site of Five Points, and cheered the train on its way to Marietta, 22 miles distant.

After completion of the track to Marietta, some of the settlers who had moved away returned and the new ones began moving in. This renewal of interest seemed unjustified in 1843 when growth of the town was halted again by suspension of work on the Western & Atlantic because of financial difficulties that led to an unsuccessful attempt to sell the road for $1,000,000. For some months into 1844 the population consisted chiefly of unemployed railroad hands, many of whom whiled away their time drinking and gambling.

Despite such hindrances to development, on December 23, 1843, the State legislature chartered the town under the name of Marthasville in honor of the daughter of ex-Governor Wilson Lumpkin, who earlier had done much to further State interest in railroads. Under the charter a five-man board of commissioners governed the town.

There were then in Marthasville two stores, the Western & Atlantic Railroad office (which also housed the engineers), a hotel, and approximately a dozen dwellings. The hotel had been literally moved into the settlement the previous year from Boltonville across the river on two flat cars drawn by a slowly moving locomotive. About fifteen acres had been cleared, including five that had been given to the state for the railroad yards. There were four highways meeting at the site of Five Points, Whitehall-Peach tree and Marietta-Decatur Roads, of which perhaps Marietta was the most thickly settled. The latter part of 1844 brought the establishment of a tread sawmill and several stores. In 1845 the town built its first lockup on Pryor Street near Alabama Street. It was a one-room structure twelve feet square on the outside, with walls three logs thick, and the key that fitted the enormous lock was eight inches long and weighed a quarter of a pound. But the lack of foundations enabled prisoners to burrow their way out or tip over the structure and thus make their escape. In the triangle near the present junction of Houston and Pryor Streets a small building was erected by private subscriptions to be used as school, church, and Sunday school. Such activity and a gradual increase in population inspired the Reverend Joseph Baker to undertake the publication of a weekly newspaper, the Luminary. It was unpopular, however, because of its emphasis on spiritual rather than topical affairs.

The same year the board of commissioners appealed to the legislature for a city charter to change the name to Atlanta and provide for a surveyed street system. Because many of the townspeople opposed the change on the grounds that it would increase taxes, the charter was not granted, but an act was passed in December changing the name of the town to Atlanta and making it headquarters for the voting precinct that had been at the "Whitehall Tavern. Suggestion of the name is generally credited to J. Edgar Thomson, then chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad. His ingenious derivation was "... the terminus of the Western & Atlantic Railroad—masculine Atlantic, feminine Atlanta." With no systematic layout of the streets, the townspeople continued to build haphazardly along the cowpaths and in whatever manner suited their personal whims. When the charter was finally granted, it was too late to straighten the streets already lined with buildings.

Impetus to growth of the town had been given by the arrival, on September 15, of the first through train over the newly completed branch of the Georgia Railroad from Madison, opening the market to Augusta. In 1846 the Macon & Western branch opened transportation between Macon and Atlanta. The town now had three railroads terminating at the State Square, which was the five acres of Land Lot 77 given to the State by Samuel Mitchell, of Zebulon, for railroad shops. The land around the square had been divided by Mitchell into 17 town lots, most of which had been sold by the first of the year. In April he had deeded to the Macon & Western for a station site a block adjoining the State Square and bounded by Alabama, Whitehall, Pryor, and the tracks. Soon afterward his remaining land was surveyed and subdivided into blocks with intervening streets, which were given to the city. Three adjacent tracts, Land Lots 51, 52, and 78, were similarly developed by their owners.

Active real estate development stimulated growth in other lines. Two short-lived newspapers began publication in that year; and in the one following two schools were opened, making a total of four in operation. At this time, when the estimated population was 300, the town was extended banking facilities by the Georgia Railroad agent to sell exchange on Augusta, Atlanta's chief market. E.Y. Clarke, an early historian, says that the year 1847 saw the erection of a block of brick buildings and cites among "other evidences of coming municipal greatness the razor strap man who daily perched upon a stump near the corner of Whitehall and Alabama Streets and hawked his wares to passers-by. So voluminous was the cotton trade at this time that it was often impossible to weigh all the staple on the day it was brought in. Long lines of cotton-loaded wagons drawn by oxen and four-and six-mule teams lumbered daily into the town and departed filled with commodities of the Atlanta merchants.

Government by the commissioners had been merely nominal, and the rough elements of the population had been quick to take advantage. Any attempt of the board to collect a tax or enforce a law had been occasion for derisive laughter. A large part of the citizenry was composed of railroad laborers and floaters who violently opposed all measures of municipal law. These people lived in two villages on the outskirts of the city, Snake Nation and Slab Town, the latter so named because its impoverished inhabitants constructed their huts of slabs salvaged from the near-by crosstie sawmill. A third disreputable section, Murrell's Row, just off Decatur Street, was named for a bandit who roved the Southern States. Here laws were ignored, cockfights were held in the back yards, gambling went on day and night; shouting, loud quarreling, and shooting often shattered the quiet of the nights, and respectable citizens were afraid to venture near the spot after dark.

The charter of the City of Atlanta, as granted by the legislature on December 29, 1847, provided for government by a mayor and six councilmen. The first election, in which all 215 voters of the towns estimated population of 500 participated, was held on Kile's corner exactly one month later. The new city government made an effort to curb the rampant lawlessness. During the first two months numerous disorderly conduct cases were tried in the mayor's court and fines imposed for these and other infractions of the law, such as draying without licenses and shooting within the city limits. Laws were passed prohibiting the transaction of business on Sunday. To prevent disease threatened by the low living standards of most of the inhabitants, a board of health was appointed during the summer. The active city council in June decided on regular semimonthly meetings and special meetings as necessary. Since there was no permanent gathering place, the Committee on Horse Racks was made responsible for setting up the bell before each session at the site selected so that the councilmen might locate the meeting place by following its sound. This duty eventually devolved upon the marshal and deputy marshal, who in the early fall were each fined five dollars for failure to move the bell. In November the council was forced to dismiss the city clerk for refusal to report the receipts of his office. So strenuous were the efforts to enforce the laws that even Mayor Moses W. Formwalt had a disorderly conduct case lodged against him, presumably because of his saloon which was popular with rough characters.

With improved civic conditions and a constantly increasing population, the church people, who attended nonsectarian services in the "triangle" building, felt the need for organization of their own denominational groups. Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Catholic churches were organized in 1848, and all except the Presbyterians erected their buildings in that year and the one following. The Presbyterians, under the leadership of Dr. J.S. Wilson, who hadserved as minister in the triangle church since its erection in 1845, continued for a time to hold their services there.

Supported by church circles as the candidate most likely to work beneficial reforms, Dr. B.F. Bomar was elected mayor in 1849. Bomar's administration levied a property tax of three-tenths of one per cent and, in line with the precedent set by Formwalt, deposited fines for disorderly conduct and other violations in the city treasury. Nevertheless in April of that year, because of irregular tax receipts, the city was compelled to float a $500 bond issue, its first, to cover operating expenses. A petition had been made for the straightening of Whitehall Street and, for the sake of economy, Bomar sentenced city prisoners to dig up stumps on the street, the number in proportion to the seriousness of the offense. A 20-foot plank road was constructed on a portion of the street, and plank sidewalks, 8 feet wide, were built as they could be afforded. A temporary hospital was established, and the Atlanta Intelligencer, the first Atlanta paper to attain any degree of permanency, began publication. In this year also the Western & Atlantic Railroad was completed to Chattanooga, Tennessee, affording the growing city a wider market.

Although to the orderly element of the populace Formwalt's administration had seemed inadequate, it probably had accomplished all that was possible in that short period after 12 years of almost no municipal discipline. The next two administrations introduced no new reforms calculated to show quick results. The 1850 council did, presumably in desperation, require that each person obtaining a business license post a bond of $200 as a guaranty that no violation of city ordinances would be tolerated on the premises. This council also built a new calaboose, larger and stronger than the first but still too small; in order to imprison new offenders, those who had been confined for the longest period of time were taken out, given a strapping, and released. But these elementary measures could not alter Atlanta's reputation as a wide-open frontier town, where there was said to be one saloon for approximately every 50 inhabitants. Desirable potential settlers were frightened away, and many inhabitants threatened to move unless drastic changes were effected.

Late in 1850 the conservative citizens took a more vigorous stand and formed themselves into the Moral, or Orderly, Party, receiving the full support of the Atlanta Intelligencer. The opposing group, of which the gamblers and drinking faction were members, was called the Rowdy, or Disorderly, Party. After a lively fight the Moral Party won the election, and the new mayor, Jonathan Norcross, immediately began to wage an intensive campaign against crime and lawlessness.

In defiance, the Rowdy Party staged an attempt at a "reign of terror." One member, when arraigned before the mayor and council for disorderly conduct, refused to make any defense but whipped out a long knife and brandished it threateningly. The sheriff struck down the knife with his walking stick, but in the melee that followed the prisoner escaped. Two nights later the Rowdy Party placed a cannon loaded with dirt and powder in front of Norcross' store on Peachtree Street and warned the mayor to resign or have his store blown up. The mayor assembled a volunteer police force of 100 armed men which surrounded the party headquarters on Murrell's Row about midnight and, breaking in, arrested 20 of the men. The leaders were locked in the calaboose and released later only upon their promise to leave town. A group of the volunteer police later raided Snake Nation and Slab Town, ran the inhabitants from their homes, crashed in walls, and burned some of the shacks. Prostitutes were scuttled out of the vicinity in wagons and warned never to return.

Although the mass criminal element had been routed, for the next ten years the city officials were deluged by complaints of citizens against their neighbors. Council proceedings were filled with such items as that of December 1857, Hogpens still giving trouble, and of July 23, 1858, when council was petitioned to require the "owners of cows and cattle to have the same Stabled at night. As there are many of the Citizens of the City who are greatly annoyed by Cows lying around their gates and Lots..." The marshal was harried by the problem of keeping the streets cleared of the bodies of hogs killed by the heavy wagon traffic. Young rowdies rolled barrels containing squealing pigs down the Alabama Street hill and, when the marshal rode up to stop them, tied firecrackers to his horse's tail. Brothels were declared a nuisance and a fine of $50 was set. Hotel owners were fined for throwing garbage into the streets, and laws were passed against the blocking of sidewalk traffic in front of Whitehall Street stores during auctions. But little heed was paid to these laws.

As late as 1850 the schools had met with little success and many of the early teachers had moved away. Since only a few of the citizens were slaveholders, the children were often kept at home to help with the chores about the gardens and livestock. In 1851, however, several teachers felt that times were propitious for the opening of more schools and in that year several schools and academies, one high school, and a music school were opened. In 1853 the first free school, financed from the State poor school fund, was opened, and in 1858 an ill-starred movement for a city public school was begun.

The town was now more than four times the size of Decatur, and a movement was initiated to make Atlanta a county seat. Forthwith in 1853 the legislature created from half the DeKalb County territory the County of Fulton, named presumably for Hamilton Fulton. At about this time the ambitious citizenry also made an unsuccessful attempt to have the State capital transferred to Atlanta, Mayor John F. Mims resigning in order to lead the campaign.

Early settlement had been made to the north of the tracks and some houses were being built along Peachtree Street, but expansion was chiefly to the south. Business houses were concentrated along Whitehall and Alabama Streets, Market (Broad) Street was the center of the market district, residences extended out Pryor Street to Garnett Street, and small frame houses occupied the space between Alabama and Mitchell Streets.

During the 1850's the city developed rapidly. Banks were established; the Athenaeum, the city's first theater, and Parr's Hall provided entertainment by stock companies; a local dramatic club was organized; a concert hall was opened; the Fulton Brass and String Band provided music for parties; and a five-acre fair ground (Fair Street) was bought and offered for the use of the Southern Central Agricultural Association. Fraternal societies were formed, as well as the military Gate City Guards and Atlanta Grays. Other churches were erected and there was vigorous business and residential building. Streets and sidewalks were paved, and a gas plant was built, the streets being lighted by gas on Christmas night, 1855. A city hall, a market house, and fire stations were constructed, and a fire engine was bought. Atlanta Fire Company Number One was chartered by the legislature. Mechanics Fire Company Number Two was organized, and, after a fire in which several lives were lost for lack of ladders, the Atlanta Hook and Ladder Company was formed. By the end of the decade the city had still another fire company, Tallulah Fire Company Number Three. The Atlanta & West Point Railroad was completed to Alabama and two other railroads, the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line and the Georgia Western, were chartered. By April 1, 1859, the city had a population of almost 10,000, and the assessed value of its real estate was $2,760,000.

Atlanta citizens had given little thought to the slavery question beyond becoming aroused in 1857 to the extent of sending military and financial aid to Kansas when that territory became a source of conflict between slave-holding and abolitionist settlers. But by 1860 Atlanta was feeling strongly the tension between North and South. In January merchants met and decided on cessation of trade with Northern wholesale merchants who were abolitionists. By April feeling ran so high that a meeting was held to consider secession from the Union to join Mexico under the leadership of Juarez, but conservative opposition defeated this enterprise. Nevertheless, sentiment mounted with the passage of time. Because of the answers Stephen A. Douglas gave here at a public meeting on October 30 to questions regarding theright of secession, the public was infuriated and the Intelligencer, mouthpiece of the secessionists, bitterly attacked him. The next day the Fulton County Minute Men organized to be ready for the fight against abolitionist domination and named a correspondence committee to maintain contact with similar organizations throughout the South. Secession meetings were held every few days during December, and on the 22d Atlanta celebrated South Carolina's break from the Union with an all-day program, beginning with a sunrise salute of 15 guns and terminating with a torchlight parade and the burning in effigy of Abraham Lincoln before the Planters Hotel. Fulton County delegates to the State secession convention were elected on January 2, 1861.

Under the stress of the war, building activities ceased and some businesses were crippled, but the city soon began to hum with war industries. There was a steady influx of people, some fleeing from the stand of war, others employed by the Confederacy in the manufacture of war implements, medicine, and machinery for making arms and ammunition. On June 3 an important convention of Southern bankers was held here to consider measures of financial co-operation with the Confederate Government. The city was placed under martial law on August 11, 1862, by order of General Braxton Bragg, and Mayor James M. Calhoun was appointed civil governor of the city. Atlanta then became a large hospitalization center as well as headquarters for quartermasters and commissaries. All available large buildings, including the medical college, several hotels, and schools, were converted into hospitals.

As an inland city of the Deep South, Atlanta had had little fear of actual bombardment, despite the knowledge that its five railroads and many war manufactories made it the goal of Northern troops determined to cripple the Confederate Army by cutting off its main source of supply. As a local preparedness measure, however, in May 1864, all males between the ages of 16 and 65 were registered at the courthouse on Washington Street and equipped with arms. But even then, with the fighting only 100 miles away, Atlanta people were not gravely apprehensive since the enemy had been driven from the State at Chickamauga the preceding fall. General William T. Sherman, however, had his eyes on Atlanta, the citadel of the Confederacy, and by means of his semicircular flanking movements to the rear of the exhausted Southern troops had progressed in a few weeks as far as Kennesaw Mountain, only 22 miles distant, from where the first faint sounds of firing were heard in the city.

The contending forces pushed on to the Chattahoochee River, the Northern line like a giant whip that continually curved around and snapped at the heels of the Confederates, turning them ever southward. By July 9 Sherman's 23d Corps (of the Army of the Ohio) had crossed the river near Soap Creek, entrenching close by, and that night General Joseph K. Johnston with his Confederates crossed near Bolton, camping northeast of the crossing. On the night of the 17th Johnston received President Davis' order relieving him of the command and giving it to General John B. Hood, who completed Johnston's prearranged alignment of the troops north and east between the Federal trenches and the city. The Home Guard and "Joe Brown's Malish," 10,000 men between the ages of 16 and 65, had been dispatched to guard the river crossings, where they skirmished with small groups crossing the river.

By flanking maneuvers all the Federal companies, 106,000 strong, had crossed by the 17th and on the 18th were spread out fanwise from the mouth of Peachtree Creek to Decatur. Just beyond Decatur they wrecked several miles of the Georgia Railroad tracks. On the 19th, while Hood, with a total force of 47,000 men, was forming his battle line facing Peachtree Creek, General George H. Thomas was crossing the creek with his Army of the Cumberland. The attack of William J. Hardee and Alexander P. Stewart, planned by Hood for one o clock on the afternoon of the 20th while Thomas was still crossing, was delayed by a shift to the right over thickly wooded terrain. By four o'clock Thomas had reached the south bank and flung up light breastworks.

The Confederates attacked at five main points along Thomas line, which stretched out Collier Road from Peachtree to Howell Mill Road. About half-past four General W.B. Bate's men swooped down Clear Creek Valley east of Peachtree and charged up the slopes of Brookwood Hills to battle furiously with General John Newton's 4th Corps forces. General W.H.T. Walker advanced up Peachtree Road and assaulted Newton's corps on the front and right. The fighting quickly spread westward. General George Maney struck the front of General W.T. Ward's division just west of Peachtree Road. General W.W. Loring advanced on John W. Geary's line and, when Colonel Benjamin Harrison's men fired into his right, his left wing drove between the lines of Geary and A.S. Williams, pushing Harrison's brigade back to the creek. With the assistance of other Union forces, however, Harrison's line was quickly replaced. General E.C Walthall attacked General Williams between Northside Drive and Howell Mill Road, but the Confederates made no gains, and just before dark Bate made another sally without success. After five hours fighting, a division of artillery that Thomas placed just east of the bridge raked the valley, forcing the Confederates to retire.

Estimated casualty figures for the Battle of Peachtree Creek are 5,000 Confederates and 2,000 Federals. Among those killed was Brigadier General C.H. Stevens, one of Walker's commanders. Threeshells fell within the city, the first killing a little girl at the corner of Ivy and Ellis Streets.

At about six o'clock in the evening General Hardee was ordered to send P.R. Cleburne's division, which he was holding in reserve, to the aid of General Joseph Wheeler, who was losing ground under fire from J.B. McPherson's forces between the city and Decatur. It was not until daybreak of the 21st that Cleburne relieved Wheeler at Bald Hill (Leggett's Hill near the corner of Memorial Drive and Moreland Avenue), where his men had retreated at sundown. Wheeler's orders were to extend his line to the right, but while the changes in position were taking place two Federal divisions assaulted the Confederates and drove them off the hill, which M.D. Leggett was ordered to hold as a strategic point for firing on the Confederate States Navy rolling mills. Light skirmishing in this vicinity continued throughout the day. During the day the Confederate soldiers north of the city reconstructed fortifications at the northern corners of the inner defense lines, and in the night they moved back closer to the city.

That night Hardee's corps, under orders from Hood, moved by a circuitous route through the southern part of the city to steal up behind

McPherson's forces in the Leggett's Hill section. Hardee's men were to attack McPherson's rear at daybreak of the 22d while B.F. Cheatham's corps assaulted the front with the aid of Wheeler, in the hope of pushing the Union troops back to the creek. The plan was not realized because Hardee's battle-tired men were slow in traveling the 15 miles to their destination and it was noon before they were ready to attack. Meanwhile, most of the Federals, starting as early as three o'clock in the morning, had moved up to the abandoned outer defense trenches. Wholesale shifting of both the enemy and defending troops created restless anxiety among the citizens, and in midmorning curious groups repaired to the housetops to watch developments.

The Battle of Atlanta began about noon when the divisions of Walker and Bate, under Hardee, broke into a clearing north of Glen-wood Avenue and ran into T.W. Sweeney's division of the 16th Corps, just after it had turned from Clay Street into Fair Street (Memorial Drive). The intrepid Hardee, who had expected to come up back of McPherson's 17th Corps, gave quick orders to left face,

and the fierce battle that then ensued raged for more than two hours. Meanwhile, Cleburne's and Maney's troops had engaged those of Giles A. Smith's 17th Corps division at Glenwood and Flat Shoals Avenue. Charging the Federal breastworks, the Confederates captured the 16th Iowa Regiment, the 2d Illinois Battery, and Murray's Battery. The hard-pressed Federals fled their trenches, through the woods and up the slopes of Leggett's Hill, where they aligned themselves to the east of Leggett's forces, filling the gap between them and the 16th Corps. The Confederates gave chase, making the air ring with the piercing rebel yell. Reinforced by Stevenson's division of Cheatham's Corps, which Hood ordered to the spot from Grant Park, they charged up the slopes, fell back and charged again, until the hilltop was a mass of grappling humanity.

General H. Wangelin's brigade was brought in to assist the 16th and 17th Corps in holding the hill. The Confederate line was reinforced by T.C. Hindman's and H.D. Clayton's divisions of Cheatham's Corps, which marched out just north of the Georgia Railroad to engage the 15th Corps. The fighting had spread to the west and north of the railroad into the present Inman Park. A.M. Manigault's brigade, assisted by the brigades of Sharp, Brown, and Reynolds, split the Federal line near the Troup Hurt house (close to DeKalb Avenue), and captured Battery A, 1st Illinois. Pushing past the house, they also captured DeGress's battery of five 20-pound Parrott guns, which they turned upon the enemy but were forced to leave in place because the Federals stationed north of the site shelled the horses. Federal infantry and artillery reinforcements hurried to repair the gaping line, and the Confederates were stopped by the fresher and greater strength of the opposing forces. The battle was over by dark, but near Leggett's Hill there was intermittent rifle fire all during the night.

During the battle young boys just entering their teens, old men, convalescents, refugees, and soldiers in the city on leave, grasping any article that might be used as a weapon, rallied to the aid of the Southern soldiers. The slaughter was terrific and, since there was no way of counting the dead not on Hood's roster, authorities believe that all casualty figures given are vastly underestimated. Computed losses, including the wounded and captured, vary from 6,000 to 10,000 Confederates, and from 4,000 to 7,000 Federals. The Confederate general Walker and the Union general McPherson were among those killed. Although the Federals were not driven back to the creek, Hood reported that his men had been greatly encouraged by "the partial success of the day."

There were light skirmishes but no more real battles until 11:30 in the morning of July 28 at Ezra Church. Four divisions of Confederate infantry, led by Generals Stewart and S.D. Lee, attacked the right flank of General John A. Logan's Army of the Tennessee as it moved southwest of the city toward the Atlanta & West Point and the Macon & Western Railroads. The vastly outnumbered Confederates desperately fought Logan's men, who hastily flung up improvised breastworks of logs and of benches dragged from within the church. Again the attacking Confederates fought chiefly in the open and lost heavily. Generals Stewart, Brown, Loring, and Johnson were wounded, and about sundown General Walthall gave the command to cease fighting. Estimated losses were between 2,700 and 5,ooo Confederates and 650 Federals killed and wounded. No definite advantage was gained by either side.

The Federals then settled down to a steady bombardment of the city, but the firmly entrenched Confederates successfully resisted all attempts to break through the lines. On August 6 when Federal troops drew too close to the railroads (near Lee Street), Bates Confederate division made two furious sallies against General G.W. Schofield's line, scattering the forces, capturing two stands of colors, and killing and wounding 800 men.

Damage to the city and the loss of civilian life mounted as bombs and Minié balls rained down. Although water was scarce, every householder was required to keep a ladder and two buckets of water in readiness in the event an exploding shell set fire to his house. At strategic points around the city were stationed large guns, deafening in their response to the booming of the enemy's immense siege guns. The air was thick with smoke and the stinging smell of burnt powder, the streets were gashed with great shell holes, and houses were demolished. All during the day and night women, children, and aged men scrambled in and out of bombproof dugouts in back yards or scurried to and from warehouse basements. Hood says, "The ninth was made memorable by the most furious cannonade which the city sustained during the siege."

Privation and disease added to the suffering within the city. Confederate money was almost valueless, and typhoid fever struck down soldiers and noncombatants alike. There were numerous fires other than those caused by bursting shell, usually at night, and the volunteer firemen, detailed to guard duty on the streets, worked under difficulty because the Federals made targets of the fires.

During August the Federals concentrated most of their forces around the defenses that protected the two railroads to the southwest, but after the disastrous affair of the 6th they made no further advances toward the tracks. By the end of the month the Northerners had relinquished hope of penetrating the city lines, and, skirting the firing trenches, they moved southward to cut the railroads farther down and to draw Hood's forces from the city. Sherman, however, left his 20th Corps at Atlanta to protect the captured Western & Atlantic Railroad, which, repaired by his men, brought a daily average of 145 cars of supplies to the Federals.

On the 29th the Union forces wrecked the Atlanta & West Point Railroad at Red Oak and Fairburn. Two days later the Battle of Jonesboro was lost by the Confederates, and with the cutting of the Macon & Western Railroad the city was isolated from outside supplies and military reinforcements. On the next day six Federal divisions completely routed Cleburne's forces at Jonesboro and forced their retreat to Lovejoy Station.

Hood's only recourse was to try to divert Sherman from the stricken city. His troops began marching from Atlanta that afternoon, and he himself moved out at five o'clock toward Lovejoy Station. With the order to evacuate, the commissary warehouse was opened to the people, who, after months of short rations, hurried eagerly to their homes loaded with flour, syrup, sugar, and hams.

The hours after midnight were long remembered. The city rocked with blasts and rumblings of earthquake dimensions, while crowds of tired, bedraggled soldiers from the trenches streamed through the streets, pushing south to join Hood. Five engines, a train of ordnance stores, and 80 cars of ammunition, together with Confederate warehouses, were dynamited and kindled by Hood's rear guard before it marched out.

After a sleepless night the citizens waited apprehensively in the defenseless city, but the Federals remained quiet in their bivouacks. No messenger came from outside, and finally at nine o'clock on the morning of September 2, when the tension became intolerable, Mayor James M. Calhoun gathered together a few of the citizens. The group carrying a white flag and unarmed—one man having removed four pistols from his person at the mayor's suggestion that they disarm rode three miles out Marietta Street to the Federal lines, where Mayor Calhoun formally surrendered the city.

Almost immediately the troops began marching in, and between that time and the 7th approximately 80,000 soldiers filed into the small city. Wallace P. Reed, an Atlanta historian, records; At first the soldiers took what they wanted, but in the main they behaved tolerably well. The sutlers moved in with their supplies of everything from dry goods to the latest novels. A depot of quartermaster's stores was opened. Officers established their headquarters in some of the larger homes. The work of building new fortification lines was begun, and other measures were taken to prepare for defense in the event the Confederates tried to recapture the city. Fine residences were torn down and the materials used to build cabins for soldiers, tents were set up, and the city rapidly assumed the appearance of a gigantic army camp. Indeed it was Sherman's plan to make it one, and on September 4 he issued his order for evacuation by the citizens.

Because the railroads to the south of the city were a tangle of twisted rails, he wrote General Hood on the 7th outlining a plan of evacuation for southbound refugees and proposing a two-day truce at Rough and Ready. Hood agreed, at the same time protesting the inhumanity of driving innocent people from their homes. Five days later 1,565 white citizens with 79 loyal Negro servants were transported in wagons by Northern soldiers to Rough and Ready with trunks, bedding, and light furniture. One hundred men, stationed there by Hood, assisted them on to the railroad at Lovejoy Station. From there many of them went to Exile Camp, near Dawson, until they could return home. The other refugees fled to the north by the Western & Atlantic, chiefly to Tennessee and Kentucky, while most of the Negroes, whose numbers had been supplemented by those who had come great distances to camp around Sherman's lines during the siege, remained with the Federal troops. About 50 white families, presumably Union sympathizers and foreigners, also were allowed to remain during the 75 days of Sherman's occupation.

It was during this time that the Federal general, abandoning his pursuit of the elusive Hood through northwest Georgia, decided to destroy Atlanta and march to the sea, cutting the Confederacy in two with a broad path of desolation. On November 14 torches were applied simultaneously in various parts of the city and the more substantial buildings were blown up by gunpowder. One of the Federal officers writing to his wife, said,"... all the pictures and verbal descriptions of hell I have ever seen never gave me half so vivid an idea of it as did this flame-wrapped city tonight. Gate City of the South, farewell. While flames crackled and buildings crumbled around them Sherman was serenaded by one of his bands, and he said afterwards that he could never hear the "Miserere" from Il Trovatore without remembering that night. The next day he moved his troops out of the burning city on his destructive way to the coast.

Almost immediately some of the citizens began returning, and early in December the Confederates reoccupied the ruined city with Colonel Luther J. Glenn in command. On the 7th a city election was held, and Calhoun was re-elected mayor.

Within the city limits only 400 of 3,8oo buildings were left standing, and of 500 on the outskirts only 100 remained. An unexplained mystery causing conjecture and no little suspicion among the loyal Southerners was the selection of buildings to escape destruction by Sherman's men. In widely separated districts groups of houses were unscathed by the flames that reduced most of the city to ashes, and one entire business block was left untouched. The returning citizens set to work at once, men, women, and even children putting their hands "to the construction of houses. Shanties were built with brick and boards salvaged from the ruins, but many of the homes were makeshift discarded army tents, old freight cars, and, in some cases, scraps of old tin roofing nailed to rickety wooden framework. Some of the people boarded in the remaining private homes until they could erect more comfortable shelters. Almost all the commercial buildings had been wrecked, and during the hurried rebuilding a number of small structures were moved intact to Whitehall Street by some merchants, while others set up business in hastily erected shanties.

As late as Christmas many of the streets, piled with debris, were impassable. Dogs, abandoned by their refugee owners, foraged in droves at night and slept during the day under the roofs of flattened houses on the edge of town. So terribly ravaged was the section that there were no birds even when spring came. Food and fuel were scarce and, since Confederate money was almost valueless, few could afford the commodities that were available. There was dreadful suffering during the cold winters of 1864 and 1865. People scoured the battlefields for lead bullets, which they sold to buy food. Persimmon seeds were pierced for buttons, old clothes were raveled and rewoven, corn shuck hats and wooden-soled shoes were made, diced side meat was used for lard, and barter and trade took the place of cash transactions. A smallpox epidemic aggravated conditions in 1865 and 1866. Beggars roamed everywhere, but by 1866 the church congregations were able to hold fairs for the benefit of the most impoverished citizens.

]Vtounds and ridges of bare red earth on the outskirts of the city were tragic reminders of the real price of war. In this year the Atlanta Memorial Association was organized, and the bodies of soldiers were removed from their temporary graves and reinterred in Oakland Cemetery and in the Marietta cemetery. The date General Johnston surrendered the territory east of the Chattahoochee River to Sherman, April 26, was set aside for Memorial Day, which was first celebrated in 1867.

On May 4 1865, Colonel Glenn turned over the city to the Federal leader Colonel B.B. Eggleston. On the 16th the United States flag was raised formally in front of Eggleston's headquarters and lowered to half-mast because of Lincoln's death.

The majority of the citizens were willing to accept quietly the irremediable circumstances. This attitude undoubtedly was aided by Mayor Calhoun, who stated at a public meeting held June 24 that he had never favored secession and that his greatest wish was to return to the Union. In this attitude he was supported by other leaders in the city who were sympathetic to the Union. Resolutions adopted at the meeting expressed hope for early resumption of the State's former relations and function in the Union and voted confidence in President Andrew Johnson's administration.

With the passage of the Sherman Reconstruction Bill in February 1867, over President Johnson's veto, the tone set by Calhoun changed to discord. A large group of citizens favored violent opposition, another was resigned to submission, and a third claimed to uphold President Johnson but adopted an attitude of watchful waiting. After the supplemental bill was passed by the House also over the President's veto, the city was in an uproar, and a public meeting was called for the morning of March 4. The newspapers, fearing the consequences of too outspoken opposition, advised the utmost caution in action and speech. The gathering listened in tacit disapproval to the submissive resolutions drafted by pro-Union Colonel Henry P. Farrow and his committee, but there was cheering and handclapping after the reading of Colonel Luther Glenn's resolutions, which were conservative without being subservient. The crowd stamped and shouted its approval when Colonel T.C. Howard suggested that the Glenn resolutions be adopted, with an amendment designating the Reconstruction Bill as "harsh, cruel and unjust... degrading to the bitterest and last degree as it sinks us below the legal status of our former slaves, surrenders the control and policy of the Southern States to the blacks..." Because of the confusion the meeting was dismissed, but Colonel Farrow announced that an adjournment meeting would be held that night for further consideration of his resolutions. At the latter meeting ex-Governor Brown made an eloquent plea for the Farrow resolutions, which were formally adopted.

A few months later the city government, strangely enough, adopted a proposal to appropriate ten acres for a city park to be the site of a monument to Abraham Lincoln. J.L. Dunning, local president of the Lincoln Memorial Association, made the request of council and stipulated that the association would erect the monument at a cost of approximately $1,000,000. The wise council, doubting the ability of the association to raise the amount, considered adoption as the best means of keeping the matter from the ears of the already aroused public. Nothing more was heard of the monument.

A large delegation of the submissionists welcomed General John Pope, commander of the Third Military District set up by the Sherman law, when he arrived at the station on March 31, 1867. A reception was held for him that night, and a banquet was given at the National Hotel on his return from Montgomery on April 11, when Atlanta was made headquarters for the district. This cordial treatment overwhelmed the brevet general, who had expected, at best, complete indifference from all. The first impression made by Pope was an agreeable one; he arrived in civilian clothes and was courteous to everyone he met. The rigorous laws imposed on the South by Congress, however, made it impossible for any administrator of the military government to please the victims of their penalties. Then, too, Pope made the mistake of allowing himself to be surrounded by unprincipled politicians and trucklers who hoped to profit through the association. It was only a short time before the people were calling for his removal.

Then, in the summer of 1867, Benjamin Hill mounted the other oratorical stump in Atlanta and swayed the masses with his brilliant speeches. He was followed by Robert Toombs, fierily eloquent on his return from exile. Now having leaders to mold them, the nonconformists in October organized themselves into the Conservative Party, anti-convention, anti-reconstruction, anti-radical. Representatives from Clayton, Cobb, and Fulton Counties met in Atlanta on November 23, four days after Pope's order for the State constitutional convention, and appointed delegates to the State Conservative convention to be held in Macon. On December 9 the constitutional convention met in the Atlanta City Hall. At the first day's meeting there were 22 Negro delegates and 108 white, many of whom were carpetbaggers and scalawags.

During the convention's holiday recess General Pope was removed by President Johnson, who was sympathetic to complaints against Pope and his carpetbagger advisers. It was hoped that this would intimidate the convention, but the hope was vain; the President's views availed nothing against Congress, and the convention had the support of the radical Congressional leaders. The expenses were excessive, and on January 13 General George G. Meade, who had replaced Pope on the 7th, issued his order removing the Democratic governor Jenkins and State treasurer Jones from office for their refusal to pay the exorbitant claim for expenses of the convention. The public was incensed and the Atlanta press was vituperative.

The convention adjourned on March 11 after choosing Rufus B. Bullock Republican gubernatorial nominee. The election was held April 20-23, the Fulton County polling taking place at the courthouse, which was surrounded by Federal soldiers. As voters filed in to the polling place, the soldiers marched in and stood about it with fixed bayonets. Dr. J.F. Alexander, one of the two managers the county ordinary was permitted to appoint, placed his hands over the ballot box, said No ballots shall be put in this box except over my dead body until those soldiers are removed, and delayed the voting until the soldiers were withdrawn. Fulton County gave the Democratic nominee General John B. Gordon, of Atlanta, a majority of votes, but Bullock was elected by the Negro vote over the State. Many Conservative citizens, refusing to take the amnesty oath, did not vote either on the governorship or on the ratification of the new constitution, which contained a provision for a change in the capital site.

Atlanta as the new capital was the scene of the shameful fiasco that was Bullock's administration. In the city hall on July 4 convened the legislature described by Claude G. Bowers in The Tragic Era as "a cross between a gambling den and a colored camp-meeting." Here on the 21st the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, and on the next day the dignity of Bullock's inaugural ceremony was shattered by an audacious voice in the rear of the hall crying, "Go it, niggers!" Here in September Negro legislators were ejected by the Conservative Democrats with the aid of some of the Republicans and radical Democrats who had become disgusted with the behavior of the Negro members. In the temporary capitol at the corner of Marietta and Forsyth Streets, in January of 1870, twenty-four white legislators were excluded arbitrarily by a Federal military commission, and 31 Negroes were seated. In February the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified.

The military trial of prisoners arrested in connection with the Ash-burn murder in Columbus, an alleged political crime committed shortly after adjournment of the constitutional convention, was held at McPherson Barracks, near Atlanta, for three weeks beginning June 30, 1868. There was strong public indignation over the arrest, confinement, and brutal treatment of a number of innocent white and black persons. As a member of the prosecuting counsel ex-Governor Brown became even more unpopular and was the target of invectives hurled by speakers at a political rally in Atlanta. On July 23, 1868, twenty thousand Democrats sweltered for five hours under a bush arbor erected on Alabama Street as they listened to the fiery speeches of such men as Benjamin Hill, Robert Toombs, and Howell Cobb. The famous Bush Arbor Meeting initiated the campaign to end the carpetbagger rule in Georgia. And, while the Democrats worked to throw off radical Republican domination, the administration with its "million-dollar legislature" unwittingly furthered their cause by extravagant corruption. The depleted State treasury could not long support a government whose committee expenses included such items as the one for "50 gallons of whisky, 15 gallons of sherry, 7,100 cigars and 57 dozen lemons."

Probably Atlanta was the only place in the State to receive any benefits from the wanton extravagance. Bullock's semiofficial agent, H.I. Kimball, lavishly dispensed the State funds. A Northern promoter connected with many enterprises including the Tennessee Car Company and a number of Georgia railroads, he secured legislative authorization of apparently legitimate schemes that brought profit to him and his associates at the taxpayers' expense. He had bought the unfinished opera house at Forsyth and Marietta Streets and completed it, leasing it to the city for Atlanta's first capitol and installing, in 1868, on the first floor a $10,000 post office. He sold the building to the State at a good profit in 1870, and in that same year he constructed with $300,000 of State-endorsed railroad bonds the elaborate Kimball House. Here he and Bullock spent thousands in wining and dining military officers, legislators, and their friends.

Undermined by its own rottenness, the radical Republican regime In Georgia passed out of existence when the Democrats won the election in December 1871. In anticipation of this outcome and the resulting investigation, Bullock had left the State three months earlier.

Meanwhile, the city was being reconstructed in a manner more acceptable to the citizens. The noise of foundries and machine shops sounded together with the sawing and hammering of construction. Four of the railroads were operating again by the fall of 1865 and the Georgia road was being repaired. On March 3, 1866, the legislature extended the city limits to a distance of one and a half miles in each direction. The gas works were repaired and the streets again lighted on September 15. By the end of that year there were 250 business structures, most of which were brick; the assessed value of real estate was $7,000,000 and the amount of trade was $4,500,000. The city census showed a population of 10,940 white people and 9,288 Negroes, almost double that at the beginning of the war.

Among this relatively large population there was some demand for a library in the city, and in 1867 the first library was opened in a rented room by the Young Men's Library Association. The library and the lecture course it sponsored, which brought Henry Stanley, Thomas Nelson Page, and other well-known lecturers of the day, proved popular. An extension course was offered in the form of lectures by various members of the University of Georgia faculty, and an art school was also sponsored by the library.

Important steps in education were taken in 1869, and indeed it was time. Negro schools had been opened by the Freedmen's Bureau after the war, but the only white schools in the city were privately operated and beyond reach of most of the citizens. In September a committee of councilmen and citizens investigated educational needs and made plans for a city school system. Two years later the schools opened, and by the end of the term approximately 4,000 students were being taught by 56 teachers in the two high and various grammar schools. Rapid strides were made in the establishment of institutions of higher education. Atlanta University for Negroes was opened in 1865 and before 1885 five other Negro colleges began to function. The Southern Medical College was organized from the Atlanta Medical Collegein 1879, the Southern Dental College was established in 1887, and the Georgia School of Technology was opened in 1888.

As early as 1869 building costs had dropped sufficiently for Atlanta to start construction on a grand scale. Included in the buildings erected in 1870 were the DeGive Opera House, the Kimball House, and the $70,000 James residence, purchased in October for the governor's mansion. About 400 buildings were constructed in the following year. Building activity continued into 1873 accompanied by expanding mercantile and industrial operations, and in that year the Atlanta Manufacturers' Association was formed.

A chamber of commerce, which had been organized in 1860, had given serious attention to the problem of freight rate equity, but with the advent of the war this organization turned to more urgent questions, particularly that of direct trade with Europe. Disbanded during 1861, it was replaced in 1866 by the board of trade, which held daily meetings until 1871 when it was reorganized as the chamber of commerce.

A street railway, enfranchised first in 1866 and again in 1869 to separate private interests, finally became a reality in 1871. In that year two citizens bought the franchise and put into operation the city's first horsecar line on Whitehall from Five Points to West End. During the same period the general assembly was persuaded to revise the city charter to permit municipal ownership of a waterworks. A board of water commissioners was elected and the job was let to a construction company in the next year. Four years later the works at the South River reservoir (Lakewood Park) was in operation, and running water in many sections replaced the street-corner pumps and wells that had theretofore provided the water supply.

A natural aftermath of the post-war inflation was the depression of 1873, bringing cessation of construction, price reductions in real estate, and general business slackness. None of the banks failed, although one of the largest suspended operations for a short time. The Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line Railroad, kept alive through the war by Jonathan Norcross who had resumed construction in 1869, first began operation in September of the panic year. The city's financial condition became alarming, affected as it was by the extravagance of the Bullock government, the depression, and the liberality of the Constitution of 1868 in permitting "towns and cities to aid public enterprises and to incur indebtedness, without constitutional limitations." In November 153 citizens petitioned the council for a city charter revision, which was subsequently drafted, to require maintenance of the annual expense at a figure below that of the income and incumbrance of one-fourth of the real estate tax for reduction of outstanding debts. The charter was amended accordingly by the legislature in 1874, when the estimated population was 30,869. The city's financial status began to improve. With the abatement of the depression building revived in 1873, improvements on real estate for the year amounted to $1,000,000, and ground was broken in August for the erection of the U.S. post office, to cost $275,OOO.

Federal soldiers were withdrawn after the national election of 1876, and, with the lifting of the military heel for the first time in ten years, Atlanta experienced a sensation of complete release. Because the capital site had been determined during Reconstruction in an election under military supervision, another vote on that question was demanded. The vote, taken in 1877, confirmed the selection of Atlanta as the capital. In September of that year President Rutherford B. Hayes, on a good will visit, was given a cordial reception by the city.

In the urgency of rebuilding there was little time for social activities, nor was there money to pay for them. During the Reconstruction Era Bullock, the Kimball brothers, and their cliques entertained extravagantly, but most of the impoverished citizens had little inclination for gaiety. From 1873 to 1876, however, the carnival given each January by the Twelfth Night Mystic Brotherhood considerably enlivened the city. This event was similar to the New Orleans Mardi Gras and featured a long parade of elaborate floats, which were chemically lighted and displayed brilliant transparencies. The parades were followed by pageants, the crowning of Rex and his queen, and a large ball at DeGive's Opera House. In 1878 the time was shifted to October, during the fair, and in the next two years even more spectacular celebrations were given by the Mystic Owls, evidently the successor to the Twelfth Night Brotherhood. The festival was discontinued after that, but the prosperous 188o's brought increasingly elaborate entertaining that for years made Atlanta the gay social center of the State.

By 1880 commercial growth was measured in great strides. The railroads made the city an advantageous distributing point; it was a focus for the distribution of flour and canned meat from the Middle West, grain from Tennessee, Kentucky, and the upper Mississippi valley, and guano from Peru. The dry goods jobbing trade annually brought more than $1,000,000. Iron foundries and rolling mills and brick manufactories did capacity business. At this time, when the inhabitants numbered 37,409, the manufactured products for the year were valued at $13,074,037. Auctions were still popular. A Northern visitor the previous year reported "on certain days you will hear the beating of triangles, and have your attention attracted to the red flag of the curbstone auctioneer... Public buildings in Atlanta are not imposing... more like a western town... There are banks and boards of trade, and business exchanges... modern conveniences from artificial ice to a Turkish bath..." That same year, 1879, bad brought the installation of the first telephone exchange.

The city was being served by five volunteer fire companies and a hook and ladder brigade. In 1866 the first steam engine was purchased; two others were bought in 1871. Ten years later an electric fire alarm system was installed, and in 1882 the city organized a paid fire department and bought the equipment of the volunteer companies for $12,110. An electric light and power company was organized the following year and the city had its first electric lights in 1885.

A great step in expansion of the cotton industry, so vital to continued development of the city, was the World's Fair and Great International Cotton Exposition held at Oglethorpe Park in 1881. H.I. Kimball secured it for Atlanta through his friend Edward Atkinson, a Boston economist who suggested an international conference to discuss needed improvements in the culture and processing of cotton. The first world's fair in the South, it opened October 5 with a long parade to the grounds, where addresses were delivered by nationally known men. All the States and seven foreign countries were represented in the 1,113 exhibits, which were viewed by approximately 350,000 persons from all parts of the country. When the fair closed December 31, a local stock company bought the grounds, covering 20 acres, and set up a cotton mill in the main building.

At this time Atlanta was the booming metropolis of the New South. Here the departure from the leisurely ways of Southern tradition was hastened by a group of vigorous young men led by Henry W. Grady, who with an inspired pen and voice cried for work, industrial development, money, and national good will. Cheap labor and natural resources were exploited to success. Northern manufacturers attending the fair saw for themselves, and Atlanta as the capital of this movement felt most strongly the effects that were experienced in some measure by the whole South.

As the trading center of the Southeast, the city was a hub for many sectional promotional conferences and events, one of the most significant of which was the Piedmont Exposition in October 1887. This exposition of products of the Piedmont States purposed to establish a closer co-operation between agriculture and industry and attracted an attendance of more than 200,000. President and Mrs. Cleveland were among the notable visitors and were elaborately entertained during their 24-hour stay in the city.

This prosperous period made the problem of saloons more acute. In 1888 there began one of the most heated prohibition campaigns ever waged in the city. Mayor John T. Glenn in his inaugural address in 1889 tried to quell the storm: "Bar-rooms never built a city nor did fanaticism ever nurse one into greatness, and their war over Atlanta should cease... we have no right to prohibit it [liquor traffic], but it is our solemn duty to control it.. This control was eventually exercised by imposing high license fees, limiting the hours of sale, forbidding the use of screens in front of saloons, prohibiting sale on legal holidays and election days, and forbidding minors to enter bar-rooms.

The water question became of increasing importance with the rapid growth in population, which, more than 65,000 in 1889, was considerably increased by the acquisition of West End in January 1892. The artesian well at Five Points had proved a failure, its water having been condemned by the board of health. The city was fast outgrowing the supply afforded by the South River reservoir, and the fire department was hampered by the poor water flow. Mayor Glenn in 1889 had determined to have a permanent works built on the Chattahoochee River to give the growing city an unlimited water source. Although bonds were voted, the opposition of council delayed the plan, and it was not until 1893 that the new works, completed at a cost of $821,069.74, was put in operation.

The severe pinch of the Nation-wide financial panic of the early 1890's slowed progress only temporarily. By 1895 the city had recovered sufficiently to stage, with the aid of a Government appropriation, the Cotton States and International Exposition. This fair, held at Piedmont Park from September 18 through December 31, featured a complete picture of the industries and resources of the ten cotton States and was designed to promote commerce with the Latin-American countries, as well as trade and manufacture within the United States. The Negroes had a building, and Booker T. Washington was one of the speakers on opening day. Visitors streamed in and out of the city, President Cleveland and his cabinet members led the list of the distinguished, and on Governor's Day there were 20 governors in the city. Total attendance was more than a million.

During the Spanish-American War Atlanta was the site of a training camp. The close of the war was celebrated by a peace jubilee featuring a notable military spectacle and attended by President and Mrs. McKinley, cabinet members and their wives, and many army and naval officers.

Atlanta, which had been reduced to a shambles 36 years earlier, began the new century with an extraordinary record of growth. The population of 89,872 represented an increase of almost 700 per cent during that brief period. The city now had 22 public schools, 8 fire stations, large mercantile establishments, manufactories, and banks, the real and personal property values were $53,177,717. At this time the Whitehall Street viaduct was constructed, and the city presented a $25,000 site to the Government for the erection of a Federal penitentiary.

At nine-thirty that night a crowd of 5,ooo people converged at Five IPoints and swept down on Rusty Row, breaking plate-glass windows, overturning carnages and wagons, and unmercifully attacking every Negro in its path. A personal plea by Mayor James A. Woodward, who rushed to the scene, was unavailing, and 300 policemen were unable to cope with the mob; finally the firemen turned powerful streams of water on the crowd and swept it from the section. The frenzied mob then spread out through the downtown area. Hotels and restaurants barred entrances to protect Negro employees, but some Negroes, feeling insecure behind the barricaded doors and windows, escaped by back apertures and ran along the roof tops, eventually falling into the hands of the mob. Trolley wires were cut and Negro passengers forcibly removed from cars; ambulances taking the wounded to hospitals were stopped and Negroes dragged out. The mobs spread out into the residential districts, and householders were able to protect their servants only with guns and pistols. The State militia, unable to cover the entire city, stationed itself in the wrecked business area to prevent looting. Some of the routed inhabitants of Rusty Row banded together and began to attack white people. On Butler Street they fired more than 100 shots at a streetcar loaded with white passengers.

At two o'clock in the morning a heavy rain scattered the crowds, but outbreaks continued through Tuesday noon. On that day 25 citizens met in the council chamber and arranged for a law and order meeting at the courthouse. A relief committee administered $5,423 that had been subscribed for the care of the victims and their families. Although the accounts of the numbers killed and injured varied fantastically, the committee reported that in all 2 whites and 10 Negroes were killed and 10 whites and 60 Negroes injured. Prominent white men spoke in Negro pulpits over the city, and a racial tolerance group was formed.

This organization was the only one of its kind in the city until 1919, when the Commission on Interracial Co-operation, a national society, was organized in Atlanta. With its board of both whites and blacks, the commission has been the means of maintaining good will among the races and promoting Negro welfare. Trouble threatened again in 1930 when the Black Shirts took action against the employment of Negroes while numerous white people were out of work. Although there was no violence, this movement resulted in some displacement of Negroes by whites; in one week Atlanta hotels replaced 100 Negro bellboys with white ones. Other associations that have been of value in the uplift of the Negro and the promotion of better racial understanding are the Atlanta Negro Chamber of Commerce and local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League.

More undesirable publicity for the city was started in 1913, when the bruised and assaulted body of 14-year-old Mary Phagan was found in the basement of an Atlanta pencil factory. After a number of arrests, Leo Frank, the Jewish superintendent of the plant, was indicted and sentenced to hang on October 10. The newspapers gave the affair sensational publicity. Thomas E. Watson's Jeffersonian in 1914 and 1915 inflamed public opinion and agitated racial prejudice until the case became a major issue in political campaigns. Suspected intimidation of the court and jury because of mass sentiment influenced the granting of appeals to higher courts. New trials, during which Frank was sentenced twice again to hang, and subsequent litigation stayed execution until Governor John M. Slaton on June 21, 1915, the day before his term expired, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. The following day martial law was declared in order to protect Governor Slaton, hitherto one of the State's most popular governors, and soldiers were ordered to guard his house. His assassination was attempted at the capitol, and that night an armed mob of 5,OOO bore down on his home, wounding 16 of the guards before order could be restored. There had been much activity outside the State to save Frank, but the commutation of his sentence aroused strong feeling throughout the Nation. Slaton left the State and later the country for a protracted stay.

On August 16 a lynching party of 25 overcame the warden and guards at the State Prison Farm and took Frank to the outskirts of Marietta, Mary Phagan's home, where his body was found the next morning hanging from a limb. A hysterical mob of several thousands gathered and was restrained from tearing the body to pieces only by the courageous speech of a Marietta judge. Authorities were forced by threats to display the body at an Atlanta morgue where a morbid 15,000 viewed it. The ballad "Little Mary Phagan" was composed around this tragedy.

Atlanta long had been termed "the City of Conventions," and as it grew in enterprise the annual number of conventions increased. One of the most important was the meeting of the Southern Commercial Congress in 1911, when 2,000 delegates were addressed by President Taft, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, then Governor of New Jersey. In the same year the peace jubilee and Old Guard celebration, featuring the unveiling of the Old Guard Peace Monument at Piedmont Park, gathered 1,500 military visitors. This event commemorated the good will tour of the Gate City Guard in October 1879 through the North and East and was the second of Atlanta's peace jubilees.

Three years later, however, the city was feeling again the effects of war, though indirectly. The European conflict drastically affected the cotton trade, middling cotton dropping from 12¢ to approximately 6¢, and movement of the crop was blocked. The result in Atlanta was a general business depression. Bankers, businessmen, and chamber of commerce members conferred on the best means of meeting the emergency and were instrumental in effecting the adoption of a. cotton warehouse receipt that could be used as collateral in making loans. Asa further measure of relief, Georgia farmers were urged to cultivate food products.

A stimulus to this movement was the large cattle show held by the Southeastern Fair Association as its first exhibit in 1915.

The city leased Lakewood Park, site of the old waterworks, to the association, which was organized at the initiation of the Chamber of Commerce the previous year. The terms of the transaction were that 80 per cent of the association's profits be spent on the park, Buildings were erected, the race track constructed, and a streetcar line extended to the grounds. More than $1,000,000 were later spent on improvements, and the site has had increased popularity as a summer amusement park and a center for racing, skating, and aquatic events.

In 1914 the city had secured the Sixth District Federal Reserve Bank. Financial conditions began to improve, in I915, bank clearings in the city at the end of 1916 exceeded $1,000,000,000, and business expanded rapidly.

In January 1917, General Leonard Wood selected a site for the establishment of Camp Gordon, a cantonment where approximately 55,000 men were trained. In 1918 the Wax Department made it a replacement camp, and a total of 250,000 soldiers passed through it during the World War and the period preceding demobilization in December 1919. During construction of the camp, a special local war tax was imposed to pay for piping water to the site, and after the quartering of troops there a large bond issue was necessary to enlarge the waterworks.

During this time the Federal Government was spending approximately $25,000,000 annually in the vicinity of Atlanta, using all available labor in the erection of plants and the camp. On May 21, 1917, when private building was at a virtual standstill, the city was victim of a disastrous fire which, beginning in a Negro house off Decatur Street, swept out Jackson Street and Boulevard and across to Ponce de Leon. The local companies were assisted by those from other cities and 1,000 soldiers from Fort McPherson. But, in spite of dynamiting and the use of every known means of fire fighting, 2,000 homes were destroyed. The loss was estimated at $5,000,000 and approximately 10,000 people were rendered homeless. This disaster, at a time when the city was crowded with new people attracted by the camp and many war industries, made housing a serious problem until 1920 when labor was available for private building.

In 1941 Camp Gordon, abandoned for many years, became a veritable ant hill of activity. Men worked night and day constructing a large airport and a 2,000-bed cantonment hospital. The airport is a reserve training station for preliminary instruction of naval and marine corps aviators. Atlanta has been made 4th zone headquarters of the United States Quartermaster Corps, and a $15,000,000 supply depot is being constructed.

In 1921, the tax rate, which had been lowered to 1 1/4 per cent in 1897, was raised to 1 1/2 per cent to meet increased operating expenses. In addition it was necessary to float a bond issue for improvements in the amount of $8,500,000. With the proceeds sewers were laid, streets were widened, and the Spring Street viaduct was constructed and opened to traffic in December 1923. Widening and extension of the streets leading to the viaduct immediately followed. Further construction of viaducts and schools, erection of a new city hall, and the expansion of the waterworks and sewer system were permitted by an $8,000,000 bond issue floated in 1926, when the population was 249,000. In the 1936 and 1940 elections a proposed issue of $4,000,000 for needed improvements on the schools and city hospitals failed because, although a large majority of favoring votes were cast, the total of 19,357 votes necessary for passage was not attained.

Atlanta had woman suffrage before it became a national prerogative. In May 1919, a group of women appealed to the Atlanta City Democratic Executive Committee to permit the participation of women in the city primary. The request was granted, and the Central Committee of Women Citizens was organized and canvassed the city, persuading 4,000 women, in all wards of the city, to register and vote in September. In November of that year the name of the organization was changed to the Atlanta Women Voters' League and has become officially the Atlanta League of Women Voters, now affiliated with the national league. This organization augments the valuable work of several local clubs that strive to acquaint all eligible voters with the issues involved and to stimulate active participation in elections.

The first scandal within the ranks of the city government came in the fall of 1929, when charges of bribery were made against a city official. An investigation led to the indictment of 26 persons, 15 of whom subsequently were convicted and received sentences.

Law enforcement has been of great importance in recent city elections. From late in the 1920's through the middle of the 193o'^s there was widespread agitation over poorly managed traffic, careless driving, and inefficient police service. The hotel operators charged the police chief with negligence and failure to co-operate in the fight against vice and crime, and labor leaders preferred charges against him for drinking and cursing while on duty; policemen were charged with "grafting and mooching" and with writing "bug" numbers. The grand jury investigation of the department led to no tangible improvements. In 1937 William B. Hartsfield, who promised reorganization of the police and detective departments, was elected to the office of mayor. During his regime there was marked improvement in law enforcement services and the general functioning of the city government. In 1939 the city closed its books with a cash surplus of $772,270.65, the largest in its history. Proceeds from liquor store bonds and taxes after the repeal of prohibition in 1938 were helpful in making this surplus possible.

Cultural activities assumed popular and important .proportions in the twentieth century. In 1904 the newly formed Atlanta Art Association began bringing exhibits to the city and encouraging annual exhibitions of local work. Twenty-two years later the High Museum of Art was opened and in the following year the art school was begun. Beginning in 1910 the Metropolitan Opera Company gave performances in Atlanta each spring until 1931. As the only city south of Baltimore to have annual performances by this company, Atlanta was always thronged with out-of-State visitors during opera week. With the coming of the depression this event was discontinued, and Atlanta did not see the Metropolitan artists in opera again until the first Dogwood Festival in the spring of 1936, when the performance of three grand operas was a feature of the festivities. In the meantime the city had contented itself with the presentations of the Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra and the All-Star Concert Series, which each fall and winter brings notable artists. The citizens enthusiastically welcomed a revival of the Metropolitan Opera season in April 1940, at which time the Dogwood Festival also was revived. During the winter months famous actors are presented by road companies in popular Broadway plays. Leading lecturers are brought to the city each year by Agnes Scott College, Emory University, and the civic clubs.

To counteract the threatened loss of citizens and business during the Florida real estate boom, the Forward Atlanta Movement was organized by the Chamber of Commerce in October 1925. The appeal of low wages and fine natural resources was again presented to the East and Middle West. An intensive campaign, costing $822,000, for the importation of new manufactories and commercial concerns was waged and in something over four years brought to the city 762 new enterprises, employing 20,286 persons and paying annual wages and salaries to the amount of $34,500,000.

In marked contrast to these booming years were the early 1930's when the city, with the whole country, felt the effects of the depression. Unemployment, which had presented no serious problem except for a brief period after the World War, became serious indeed. In| 1932 a mass demonstration of a thousand unemployed blacks and whites led to the courthouse by Angelo Herndon, a Negro Communist, protested the inadequacy of relief measures. In 1933 the CWA brought some alleviation and kindred agencies, the PWA, FERA, and WPA have continued to do so. The housing agencies have replaced hundreds of unsightly shacks with eight attractive developments, five for Negroes and three for white people, that offer low-income groups full utility services and the most modern in structural design at moderate rents. In addition the city has received many benefits through the various construction, education, and community service projects. There is a growing tendency in the city to get away from the exploitation of employees which was begun 60 years ago when there was need of industrial expansion at any cost. Initiated by the short-lived NRA measures in 1932, this trend has been accelerated by the Wages and Hours Law, and Atlanta industry in its co-operation is increasingly exceeding the requirements.

The city's importance as a county seat was heightened in 1932 with the merging of Campbell and Milton Counties and the Roswell area of Cobb County into Fulton County. This acquisition more than doubled the area of Fulton and increased its population by more than 18,000 persons.

Atlanta, for so large a city, has had few calamitous fires. The efficient fire department in April 1936 was awarded national honors in fire prevention. Sut in the next year and a half the city had its two most disastrous fires in 20 years. In the fall of 1936 three people lost their lives in a flame-gutted studio building in the downtown section, and in May 1938, twenty-seven persons perished when the old Terminal Hotel was burned to the ground.

One of the Nation's ranking aviation, communication, and insurance centers, the city in 1940 had a population of 302,538. The railroads that gave the city birth and have fed it to almost prodigious growth are responsible for its commercial prosperity and its establishment as the outstanding convention center of the Southeast. In 1939, 495 conventions brought 134,000 delegates to the city, more than double the number in 1935.

The tides of conventions and tourists have increased since publication of Margaret Mitchell's historical novel, Gone With the Wind, in 1936. Owing to phenomenal popularity of the book, international interest has been aroused in the history of the city that rose so rapidly from the ruins of Sherman's making. One of the greatest celebrations to be held here in the twentieth century was the festival attending the premiere of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's vivid picturization of the book in December 1939. Hundreds of visitors streamed up and down Peach-tree Street, a few of them searching, in all seriousness, for the site of "Aunt Pittypat's" house, others conjecturing as to the spot Scarlett O'Hara would have chosen for the erection of her "chalet" with the scrollwork trim. Thousands lined the streets for two hours in a cold, gusty wind awaiting the arrival of the stars, only to catch a kaleidoscopic view of furs, red roses, and bared masculine heads as the delayed parade streaked past. Crowds blocked the streets around the Georgian Terrace Hotel to see the actors and hear brief speeches of welcome from the mayor, the governor, and other prominent men. A public ball, at which men and women danced in costumes of the 186o's, was given at the auditorium that night and featured entertainment typical of the Old South.

The night of the premiere crowds packed the streets around the theater, on the facade of which a concrete, large-columned portico with Greek pediment had been superimposed. Giant magnolias flanked the pillars, and multicolored flowers bloomed in the garden that extended into the street. Spotlights played over the theater front, the people thronging the streets, dotting surrounding roof-tops, and peering out of near-by office windows. In the theater, approximately three blocks from the site of the State Square park that served as an outdoor hospital in 1864, Atlantans saw the picture. They compared the primitiveness of the pictured Peachtree Street and Five Points with their present appearance and were proud.

Contents