| Please Provide Information |
|
| |
|
|
|
| Atlanta Apartment Locator Services : Atlanta Apartments |  | Contents | |
| History |
|
| The region where Atlanta and its suburbs were built was originally
Creek and Cherokee Indian territory. After these tribes were
deported along the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma by the Federal
government, white settlement in the area increased rapidly. |
| Atlanta was first planned in 1836 as a terminus on the Western
& Atlantic Railroad, for lines connecting from Birmingham,
Chattanooga, Macon, and Athens. The terminus was originally
planned for Decatur, but its citizens did not want it. Another
spot was arbitrarily picked, around which the village of Terminus
grew up in expectation of railroad traffic. Besides Decatur,
several other suburbs of Atlanta predate the city by several
years, including Marietta and Lawrenceville. As the population
grew, it was eventually decided that a better name for the town
should be found, since Terminus was more or less a technical
term. Originally it was suggested that the town be named after
former governor and then-mayor of Terminus, Wilson Lumpkin.
Already having a city and a county named after him, the Governor
refused and suggested that the city be named after his daughter,
Martha, instead. Therefore, starting in 1843, Terminus was known
as Marthasville. The origins of the modern name are somewhat
difficult to describe. In 1845, the Chief Engineer of Georgia
Railroad, John E. Thomson, suggested the name Atlanta for the
town. The motives behind the change are unclear, as is the source
behind the name. Thomson himself reportedly told different stories
about the source of the name. One story suggests that the name
is a feminization of Western and Atlantic Railroad, while another
claims that the name is a variation of Martha Lumpkin's middle
name, Atalanta. Whatever the case may be, Marthasville was renamed
Atlanta in 1845 and was incorporated as such in 1847. |
A slave auction house on Whitehall
St., before Sherman burned Atlanta |
|
| In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion
in the American Civil War, the Atlanta Campaign, later immortalized
in the novel and film Gone With the Wind. The area now
covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles including
the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the
Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confedeate General
John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted
by Union General William T. Sherman, and ordered all public
buildings and possible union assets destroyed. Sherman's forces
entered Atlanta the next day and Sherman ordered the civilian
population to evacuate on September 7. He then ordered Atlanta
burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his punitive
march south. After a plea by Father Thomas O'Reilly of Immaculate
Conception Catholic Church, Sherman did not burn the city's
churches or hospitals. The remaining war resources were then
destroyed in the aftermath and in Sherman's March to the Sea.
The fall of Atlanta was a critical point in the Civil War, giving
the North more confidence, and leading to the re-election of
Abraham Lincoln and the eventual surrender of the Confederacy. |
| After the war, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt and soon became
the industrial and commercial center of the South. From 1867
until 1888, US Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks (later
renamed Fort McPherson) in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction
era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves the federal government
set up a Freedmen's Bureau which helped establish what is now
Clark Atlanta University, one of several historically black
colleges in Atlanta. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city
to serve as the state capital. Henry W. Grady, the editor of
the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors
as a city of the "New South," by which he meant a diversification
of the economy away from agriculture and a shift from the "Old
South" attitudes of slavery and rebellion. |
In 1907, Peachtree Street, the main street of Atlanta,
was busy with streetcars and automobiles. |
|
| As Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. A race
riot in 1906 left at least twelve dead and over seventy injured.
In 1913, Leo Frank, a Jewish supervisor at an Atlanta factory,
was put on trial for raping and murdering a thirteen-year old
white employee. After doubts about Frank's guilt led his death
sentence to be commuted in 1915, riots broke out in Atlanta
and Frank was lynched. |
| In the 1930s, the Great Depression hit Atlanta. With the city
government nearing bankruptcy, the Coca-Cola Company had to
help bail out the city's deficit. The federal government stepped
in to help Atlantans by establishing Techwood Homes, the nation's
first federal housing project in 1935. With the entry of the
United States into World War II, soldiers from around the southeast
went through Atlanta to train and later be discharged at Fort
McPherson. War-related manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft
factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population
and economy. Shortly after the war in 1946, the Communicable
Disease Center, later called the Centers for Disease Control
was founded in Atlanta from the old Malaria Control in War Areas
offices and staff. |
| In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the
civil rights movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King and students
from Atlanta's historically black colleges playing major roles
in the movement's leadership. On October 19, 1960, a sit-in
at the lunch counters of several Atlanta department stores led
to the arrest of Dr. King and several students, drawing attention
from the national mdia and from presidential candidate John
F. Kennedy. Despite this incident, Atlanta's political and business
leaders fostered Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate"
by avoiding the types of violent confrontations that took place
in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama. |
| In 1990, the International Olympic Committee selected Atlanta
as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement,
Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve
the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. The
games themselves were marred by the Centennial Olympic Park
bombing, which resulted in the death of two people and injured
several others. |
|
|
|
|
