Weather for the Following Location: 2ua.org/usa/atlanta/map/
The native Creek people and their ancestors lived in north Georgia for thousands of years before European invaders arrived. The nearest Native American site to what is now Atlanta was Standing Peachtree, a Creek village located where Peachtree Creek empties into the Chattahoochee River. European Americans gradually encroached on the Creek in northern Georgia during the early 19th century, driving them out of the region between 1802 and 1825. Following the federal government’s 1821 Indian Removal policy that forcibly removed the Creek from the region, European American settlers began to occupy the region the following year.
The Western and Atlantic Railroad was authorized to be built by the Georgia General Assembly in 1836 in order to connect the port of Savannah with the Midwest. The original route planned to connect Chattanooga with Savannah through a terminal east of the Chattahoochee River. The “zero milepost” was inserted into the earth near what is now Foundry Street, Five Points, after engineers investigated a number of potential places for the terminus. The railroad’s chief engineer, Stephen Harriman Long, responded that the small town would be suitable only for “one bar, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else” when questioned about its future in 1837.
After a year, the area around the milepost had grown into a community that was originally called Terminus and then Thrasherville after a nearby businessman who had constructed dwellings and a general store there. The town was renamed Marthasville in 1842 to commemorate Governor Wilson Lumpkin’s daughter Martha when it had six structures and 30 citizens. Later, John Edgar Thomson, the Georgia Railroad’s Chief Engineer, proposed renaming the settlement to Atlanta. On December 29, 1847, Atlanta was officially incorporated after the locals gave their approval.
Civil War
A United States Colored Troop infantryman (corporal) is seated by the door in George N. Barnard’s 1864 image of a slave trader’s establishment on Whitehall Street in Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta’s population increased to 9,554 by 1860. Atlanta served as a strategic hub for the distribution of military supplies during the American Civil War due to the city’s proximity to several railways.
Following the conquest of Chattanooga in 1864, the Union Army marched south and started its assault of north Georgia. Several significant army battles took place in the area around Atlanta, culminating in the Battle of Atlanta and the Union Army’s four-month siege of the city under the leadership of General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Confederate General John Bell Hood ordered the destruction of all public structures and potential assets on September 1, 1864, the day he made the decision to withdraw from Atlanta. Mayor James Calhoun gave Atlanta over to the Union Army the following day, and on September 7 Sherman issued an evacuation order for the city’s civilian population. On November 11, 1864, Sherman gave the order to destroy the last of Atlanta’s military equipment in order to get ready for the Union Army’s March to the Sea.
Late 19th-Century Reconstruction
Atlanta was gradually rebuilt during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War ended in 1865. Many new residents were drawn by the work. The state capital was relocated from Milledgeville because of the superior rail transit system in the city.
Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, began promoting Atlanta to possible investors in the 1880s as a “New South” metropolis with a modern economy that would be less dependent on agriculture. Atlanta had become a hub for higher learning by 1885 thanks to the establishment of the Georgia School of Technology (now Georgia Tech) and the Atlanta University Center, a group of historically black universities with both male and female sections. Atlanta played host to the Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895, which drew close to 800,000 visitors and effectively marketed the growth of the New South to the rest of the world.
20th Century
Peachtree Street, Atlanta’s main thoroughfare, was crowded with streetcars and cars in 1907.
Atlanta experienced unheard-of growth in the early decades of the 20th century. Atlanta’s population tripled in three decades as the city’s boundaries grew to absorb surrounding streetcar communities. With the development of the Equitable, Flatiron, Empire, and Candler buildings, the height of the city’s skyline increased. The city of Sweet Auburn became a hub for black business.
Strife and tragedy were other characteristics of the time. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 was the result of rising racial tensions; whites attacked blacks, resulting in at least 27 fatalities, over 70 injuries, and significant property damage in black districts.
Leo Frank, a Jewish-American manufacturing manager, was found guilty of killing a 13-year-old girl in 1913 after a widely reported trial.
The governor commuted his execution sentence to life in prison. He was taken from prison in 1915 by a well-organized and furious lynch mob, who then hanged him in Marietta. Jewish communities across the nation, including those in Atlanta, were outraged. In what is now the Old Fourth Ward, 1,938 buildings were burned by the Great Atlanta Fire on May 21, 1917, leaving one person dead and 10,000 more homeless.
The epic movie Gone with the Wind, which was based on the best-selling book by Atlantan Margaret Mitchell, had its world debut in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. David O. Selznick, the film’s famed producer, and the actors Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland were present at the gala event at Loew’s Grand Theatre, but Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel, an African-American actress, was not allowed to attend because of racial segregation laws.
Metropolitan Area’s Growth
Due to the city’s war-related manufacturing firms, railroad network, and military locations, Atlanta was crucial to the Allied effort during World War II. Defense-related industries brought in tens of thousands of new residents and generated income, which led to a quick increase in both population and GDP. Middle class Atlantans were able to move to the suburbs in the 1950s because of the newly built highway system in the city, which was funded by federal grants. As a result, the population of the city started to represent a smaller share of that of the metropolitan area. To make Atlanta the “MIT of the South,” Blake R. Van Leer, president of Georgia Tech, played a significant role.
The first electron microscope in the Southeastern United States and one of just a handful in the country at the time was purchased for $13,000 (equal to $180,000 in 2021) by Georgia Tech in 1946. At the time, it was one of the few in the country. Georgia Power donated a $300,000 (or $4,000,000 in 2021) Westinghouse A-C network calculator to Georgia Tech in 1947, and the Research Building was also expanded.
In 1953, Van Leer supported Lockheed in establishing a production and research facility in Marietta. Later in 1955, he participated in the formation of a group to aid with the creation of the Neely Nuclear Research Center, a facility for nuclear research. In order to help fill the need for technicians following the war, Van Leer also co-founded Southern Polytechnic State University, which has since been absorbed by and formed a component of Kennesaw State University. The university and Atlanta became the first significant research hub in the American South thanks in large part to Van Leer. His name is on the structure that houses Tech’s school of electrical and computer engineering.
Civil Rights Movement
When African-American World War II soldiers returned home, they stepped up their activity and demanded full citizenship rights. In 1948, the mayor ordered the hiring of the first eight African-American police officers in the city in return for support from the segment of the black population that was able to cast a ballot. When the Pitt Panthers and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets faced off in the 1956 Sugar Bowl, fullback Bobby Grier, an African-American, was on the Pitt roster. Owing to Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin’s aversion to racial integration, there had been debate over whether Grier should be allowed to play due to his race and if Georgia Tech should even compete. Griffin openly requested Georgia Tech not to participate in a telegraph to the state’s Board of Regents.
Griffin publicly requested that Georgia Tech refrain from participating in racially integrated activities in a telegraph to the state’s Board of Regents. Georgia Tech president Blake R. Van Leer rejected the request and threatened to quit. The game proceeded as scheduled.
Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and students from Atlanta’s historically black schools and institutions all played significant roles in the movement’s leadership throughout the 1960s, when Atlanta emerged as a major organizational hub for the civil rights movement. Atlanta experienced comparatively little racial conflict in the years following World War II as compared to other cities, but blacks were nevertheless subject to discrimination, segregation, and ongoing voting disenfranchisement. In order to offset the attempts of civic and commercial leaders to promote Atlanta as the “city too busy to hate,” the city attempted to prevent realtors from engaging in blockbusting by building road barriers in Cascade Heights in 1961.
Public transit, the Rich’s department store restaurant, movie theaters, and public schools were all desegregated by 1959, 1961, 1963, and 1973, respectively (nearly 20 years after the US Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional).
White people made up 61.7% of the city’s population in 1960. A large demographic shift occurred during the 1950s and 1970s as a result of suburbanization and white flight from urban areas. African Americans made up the majority of the population in the city by 1970, and they used their newly-enforced political power and voting rights to elect Atlanta’s first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1973. Atlanta’s airport underwent modernization under Mayor Jackson’s administration, enhancing the city’s position as a transportation hub. Atlanta’s emergence as a major conference city was celebrated by the Georgia World Congress Center’s completion in 1976. The city’s subway system’s construction started in 1975, and rail service started in 1979. Atlanta lost more than 100,000 residents between 1970 and 1990, or more than 20% of its population, despite these advancements.
1996 Summer Olympic Games
Atlanta was chosen as the venue for the Olympic Summer Games in 1996. After the announcement, the municipal government launched a number of significant building projects to upgrade Atlanta’s parks, sporting venues, and transit system; but, for the first time, none of the $1.7 billion cost of the games was supported by the government. Even though there were issues with the transportation and accommodations, as well as the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park despite increased security,[67] the event marked a turning point in Atlanta’s history. For the first time in Olympic history, all 197 national Olympic committees that were invited to participate sent participants, totaling more than 10,000 competitors across 271 events. The associated initiatives, such as Atlanta’s Olympic Legacy Program and community work, started a crucial experience.
21st Century
Atlanta witnessed a significant physical, cultural, and demographic transformation in the 2000s. A flourishing economy attracted many new migrants from other American cities, which helped to shift the city’s demography as some African Americans in the middle and upper classes also started to relocate to the suburbs. From a peak of 67 percent in 1990 to a low of 54 percent in 2010, the population’s percentage of African Americans was declining.
While the city’s black population fell by 31,678 between 2000 and 2010, Atlanta saw gains of 22,763 white inhabitants, 5,142 Asian residents, and 3,095 Hispanic citizens. Young, college-educated professionals were largely responsible for the city’s demographic change during the decade: between 2000 and 2009, the three-mile radius surrounding Downtown Atlanta gained 9,722 residents aged 25 to 34 and having at least a four-year degree, a rise of 61 percent. This was comparable to other cities’ trends of young, college-educated singles or married couples relocating to the downtown regions.
Under the direction of CEO Renee Lewis Glover (1994–2013), the Atlanta Housing Authority demolished nearly all of its public housing, a total of 17,000 units and around 10% of all housing units in the city, between the mid–1990s and 2010, aided by funds from the HOPE VI program. The AHA permitted the reconstruction of the properties for mixed-use and mixed-income, greater density complexes with 40% of the units to be reserved for affordable housing after reserving 2,000 apartments, the majority of which were for older people. Two-fifths of former residents of public housing found new homes in these units; the remaining recipients received vouchers to spend in other residences, including those in the suburbs.
The AHA also mandated that tenants of subsidized housing work in an effort to influence the culture of those receiving such housing (or be enrolled in a genuine, limited-time training program). Almost no other housing authority has instituted this condition. The AHA also granted management of the mixed-income or voucher apartments the right to expel tenants who disobeyed the employment requirement or who produced behavior problems in order to avoid issues.
The city gave the $2.8 billion BeltLine project its blessing in 2005. In order to improve the city’s park area by 40%, a derelict 22-mile freight railroad loop that encircles the core of the city was to be transformed into an artistically-filled multi-use path and light rail transportation line. The project promoted residential and retail growth along the loop, but it has come under fire for having a negative impact on some Black areas. A $18 million government grant was given to the project in 2013 to help it build the southwest corridor. The James M. Cox Foundation committed $6 million to the PATH Foundation in September 2019 to build a connection between the Silver Comet Trail and the Atlanta BeltLine, which is anticipated to be finished in 2022.
The Atlanta BeltLine and Silver Comet Trail will have the longest paved trail surface in the United States when they are both finished, with a combined interconnected trail length of nearly 300 miles around Atlanta (480 km).
The High Museum of Art increased in size during the 2000s, the Alliance Theatre earned a Tony Award, and art galleries were created on the once industrial Westside, increasing Atlanta’s cultural offerings. A significant cyberattack targeting the city of Atlanta started in March 2018. Atlanta was chosen as the host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup on June 16, 2022.
Here Atlanta strives to provide the finest deals, products, and experiences in your local community. It’s all RIGHT HERE, and it’s all LOCAL.
If you notice something that you believe should be here, please let us know. And you’ll notice it soon HERE!
