Much of our knowledge of Civil War Atlanta comes from the work of the official photographer of the Army of the Mississippi, George Barnard. Assigned to document military camps, fortifications and rail lines, Barnard followed General William Sherman and his troops on their infamous March to the Sea. In the process of completing his assigned […]
May Irwin was a 19th century actress who starred – with John Rice – in an 1896 short film titled The Kiss. Chances are you are not familiar with The Kiss – or Ms. Irwin or Mr. Rice – but the film’s title holds a special place in movie history as do its actors. Today, […]
For a species born without wings, we sure have spent a great deal of time trying to learn to fly. The desire to fly is probably as much a part of being human as is the fear of falling. Go figure that one out. This week we examine an event that took place in Atlanta […]
When the Civil War ended in 1865, life, as you can imagine, did not just magically return to normal. There was no “normal.” Chaos was the order of the day and the State of Georgia had been particularly hard hit. Its politics was scattered, the economy was in shambles and in June of 1865 the […]
In his epic work “The Souls of Black Folk,” WEB DuBois seems to describe the City of Atlanta in terms that separate Atlanta from what is generally considered to be a traditional Southern city. “South of North, yet north of South lies the city of a hundred hills…” he writes. The image of Atlanta as […]
The name Martin Amorous is not one that most Atlantans associate with the development of the City of Atlanta but that doesn’t diminish his contribution to the well-being of our city, not in the least.
Martin Amorous was born in Savannah, in 1858. His father , Mathias Amorous, was a proud Spaniard from Barcelona who captained a merchantman sailing vessel and he made frequent trips to the Americas.
It is safe to say that the era of the grand department store is a thing of the past. It was wonderful while it lasted but, as they say, nothing lasts forever. It was the department store that helped to lead the way into the salad days of the post WWII boom and then went on to anchor the explosion of shopping malls that populated just about every suburb in America.
Grady Hospital first opened its doors in 1892 with 14 rooms and the mission to offer the best hospital care possible regardless of a person’s social status. Since opening its doors, thousands of people from all walks of life have turned to Grady to receive care and comfort in their hour of need. Over the years, the hospital has gained an excellent international reputation as a public hospital and it has grown to become the largest hospital in the State of Georgia, public or private.
That almost everything was something else before it became what it is today is hardly news to anyone. Knowing that fact, however, does not make the observation of the evolution of a city any less fascinating. Such is the case with the subject of this week’s Stories of Atlanta. At its heart, this story is […]
Cities always like to put their best foot forward. Atlanta is no exception. There is a long history in “The City Too Busy To Hate” of boosterism. Some might even say Atlantans have been guilty of going overboard when touting the city’s achievements and capabilities. On occasion, that may have been true but, then again, […]
Our intent this week was to talk about Atlanta and her visitors. Any city that attains any sort of momentum attracts interesting visitors…some famous, some not so much. But with every visitor comes a story and this week we were going to tell a visitor story. A pretty good one too. Kind of a Day the Earth Stood Still thriller, only, not the whole earth, just a little corner in Georgia. Anyway, that was all before we discovered Miss Fluffy Raffles.
Fluffy is not a name one just skips past without pausing to at least express, “What the heck?” And to no one’s surprise, there is a bit of a story attached with Miss Raffles. On the surface, it’s a story of a playful woman who for almost two weeks tweaked the collective noses of an entire city and became front-page news in the process.
With the posting of this story…scratch that…with the release of this shameless, self-congratulatory, video attempt at associating the Stories of Atlanta brand with long-cherished American ideals such as freedom of speech and the right to assembly…we’d like to acknowledge the start of the 3rd season of the Stories of Atlanta. Last week marked the end […]
Even Atlanta, with it comparatively young history, is not without its colorful characters. And one of Atlanta’s more interesting individuals was Jasper Newton Smith. Smith was an Atlanta businessman during the city’s reconstruction days. He owned a business at what is today the intersection of Peachtree and 14th Streets.
Jasper Smith, or Jack as he was known, was a brick maker and you can imagine that, at a time when Atlanta was rebuilding from the devastation of the Civil War, a guy who made bricks was in high demand. High enough demand to make Jack Smith wealthy. By some accounts, Smith’s company produced somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million bricks.
Most people, when giving a tour of the City of Atlanta to friends or family, usually find themselves starting more than one sentence with the phrase, “On this spot…” It’s pretty much a necessity in Atlanta to point out what was in a location because, as almost everyone knows, Atlanta has never been particularly sentimental […]
Of all of the legendary names who were instrumental in building Atlanta into one of the nation’s premiere metropolitan regions, the name Carl G. Fisher is not one of them…but perhaps it should be. One could make the case that without the motivation supplied by Mr. Fisher, Atlanta would not be the city that it […]
It will come as no surprise to anyone that Peachtree Street was not always the bastion of business that it is today. At the turn of the 20th century, Peachtree Street was a tree-lined avenue with magnificent mansions on either side. It was a neighborhood…a neighborhood filled with well-to-do residents but a neighborhood none the […]
They say it’s the journey, not the destination. And for some in the 1950s and 60s whose destination was Atlanta, the journey was more than mere conveyance, it was, in fact, Southern Tradition. For many, the trip is a lingering memory from childhood. For others, it was just how we lived back in the day, […]
There are many facets that make up a successful community, city or state, but without question, one of the most important elements, if not the most important element, is people. It’s hard to have a thriving community if nobody’s home. Which was exactly the case for the State of Georgia at the turn of the […]
There are few better examples of the value of long-term planning than Atlanta’s airport. Atlanta did not blindly stumble into its status as an aviation powerhouse; it got there purposefully, thanks to the forward thinking of several Atlanta citizens. And it began with airmail. A byproduct of World War 1 was the significant advancements made […]
For time after the Civil War, Atlantans found themselves living under military occupation. In fact, the government built barracks close to downtown which housed Federal troops for that specific purpose. You probably know the name….
Atlanta’s Confederate legacy: Heavy lift faces committee to review names, tributesAugust 21, 2017 - 5:24 pm
Can the BeltLine save Atlanta? Panel discussion to explore its past, present, futureAugust 20, 2017 - 10:24 pm
Mercedes Benz now offers government-approved apprentice programsAugust 16, 2017 - 4:54 pm
‘Wind River’ dazzles as it comes from nowhere, heads for fame on video-on-demandAugust 21, 2017 - 7:44 pm
‘An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,’ better as PBS special than big-screen movieAugust 13, 2017 - 10:54 pm
‘Maudie’ starts out slowly and, thankfully, never fizzles outAugust 7, 2017 - 7:40 pm
