When the State of Georgia greenlit the Western and Atlantic railroad line and marked its terminus point just south of the Chattahoochee River, most observers recognized the impact that the new technology would have on Georgia’s commercial trade. It seems quaint by today’s standards, but almost no one at the time recognized that a world […]
Tag: Atlanta railroads
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Why The Gate City?
If you’re going to throw a party, make it a memorable party. The City of Atlanta did just that when railroad history came to town…the result? Atlanta got a free ride on a party train. It’s a tale about the benefits of sharing water, this week on Stories of Atlanta.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
The last of a legacy
This week’s story is one that is all too familiar to those understand Atlanta’s architectural history. Spoiler alert…don’t go looking for the subject of this story because it no longer exists. One of Atlanta’s first nicknames was The Gate City and, like the city itself, the nickname originated because of the railroad. That sort of […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Rules, regulations and fines
It’s pretty easy to imagine the amount of difficulty the newly chartered City of Atlanta experienced trying to bring the rule of law to a community that, since its inception, essentially had no laws. Atlanta, in its early days, was little more than a rowdy, frontier, railroad camp and, in the minds of many of […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Seem Familiar?
Samuel Spencer was killed at the age of 59. The accident that took his life happened in the predawn hours of Thanksgiving Day in 1906. Spencer and some of his friends were in Spencer’s private rail car headed for a hunting trip in Virginia. While Spencer and his fellow passengers were asleep, his railcar became […]
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The Augusta Connection
Since officially becoming a city in Georgia, Marthasville had experienced its share of challenges. Growth was slow, real estate sales were sluggish but there were promising signs. A new arrival in 1845 turned out to be just the push the town needed. The spark that ignited a city is the subject of this week’s Stories […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
They chose a name
It turns out that it was Sam Mitchel’s idea to build a town around the Western & Atlantic’s terminus point. He even had plans drawn up. And then it came time to name the town and that’s where it got interesting, as we’ll see in this week’s Stories of Atlanta.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Appreciative Guests
If you’re going to throw a party, make it a memorable party. The City of Atlanta did just that when railroad history came to town…the result? Atlanta got a free ride on a party train. This week on Stories of Atlanta, it’s a tale about the benefits of sharing water.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
The Iron Triangle
The Terminus location is fixed. The Iron Triangle is complete. There were winners and there were losers. It’s time to take stock on this week’s Stories of Atlanta.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
His Honor the Urban Planner
Reuben Cone was a justice in DeKalb County when Decatur consisted of about 12 log cabins. Which means that Judge Reuben Cone was around when they laid the 1st railroad tracks that would create the City of Atlanta. He was also smart enough to know a good thing when he saw it, as you’ll see on this week’s Stories of Atlanta.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Not a river town
During the early days of America’s founding, having access to water was one of the primary prerequisites in choosing a location for a community. It’s not a difficult concept to understand.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
An early attempt at boosterism
It is common knowledge that Atlanta got its start as a railroad town. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the influence of the railroads reached far and wide across our city. But you might not realize just how far and how wide that influence actually ran. Which is why we decided to tackle the question […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
The solution was to go up
As they say, “there are two sides to every coin,” a fact of life that Atlantans in the late 1800s knew all too well. The City’s success as a railroad town brought wealth and distinction but that success also brought to town a life-threatening problem. Thankfully, Atlanta was filled with clever people who devised a […]
