Atlanta

• 1. Introduction

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  Atlanta straddles the Eastern Continental Divide, meaning that rainwater falling on one side of the city drains toward the Atlantic Ocean, while rainwater on the other side flows toward the Gulf of Mexico. That geographic oddity is an apt metaphor for the city itself: a place perpetually caught between different worlds, different eras, and different identities. How did a tiny railroad terminus called Terminus, with six buildings and 30 residents in 1842, grow into a metropolitan area of over 6.4 million people and the sixth-largest metro in the United States? How did a city burned almost to the ground in 1864 become the unofficial capital of a "New South" within a generation? And how did it transform from a mid-century bastion of segregation into a city whose civil rights history draws millions of visitors a year? These are the questions at the heart of Atlanta's story.

• 2. A Railroad Born City

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  In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad, aiming to link the port of Savannah to the Midwest. Engineers drove what became known as the "zero milepost" into a patch of Georgia earth that is now Foundry Street, Five Points. Stephen Harriman Long, the railroad's chief engineer, was asked in 1837 about the future prospects of the spot. His verdict was blunt: the place might support one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else. Long was spectacularly wrong. Within a year, a settlement had sprouted around the milepost. It was first called Terminus, then Thrasherville, after a local merchant who built homes and a general store. By 1842, the town had six buildings and thirty residents, and was renamed Marthasville to honor Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha. The final name came from John Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, who suggested Atlanta as a feminine version of "Atlantic", referring to the railroad that had created the settlement. Residents approved, and on the 29th of December 1847, the town was formally incorporated as Atlanta. The city's origins as a railroad hub rather than a seaport defined its character from the start. Unlike Savannah or Charleston, shaped by the plantation economy and its architecture, Atlanta grew as a working transportation crossroads.

• 3. Fire and Resurrection

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  By 1860, Atlanta's population had reached 9,554, and the nexus of railroad lines running through the city had made it the Confederacy's most critical distribution point for military supplies. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman understood this perfectly. On the 1st of September 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood ordered the destruction of Atlanta's public buildings and military assets before retreating. The following day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city. Sherman then ordered the civilian population to evacuate on September 7. On the 11th of November 1864, Sherman prepared for his March to the Sea by ordering the destruction of Atlanta's remaining military infrastructure, leaving the city almost entirely burned to the ground. What followed was a rebound that astonished the nation. After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was rebuilt during the Reconstruction era, drawing new residents eager for opportunity. The city's rail network was so superior to competing Georgia cities that the state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868. By the 1880 Census, Atlanta had surpassed Savannah as the largest city in the state. Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, became the chief promoter of the idea that Atlanta and the South could build a modern economy less dependent on agriculture. He marketed the city to investors under the banner of the "New South". By 1885, the founding of the Georgia School of Technology, now Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Atlanta University Center, a consortium of historically Black colleges, had established Atlanta as a center for higher education. The Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895 drew nearly 800,000 attendees and put Atlanta's ambitions on display for the world.

• 4. Strife in the Growing City

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  The first decades of the 20th century brought rapid population growth and a taller skyline, with the Equitable, Flatiron, Empire, and Candler buildings rising above the city. Sweet Auburn emerged as a center of Black commerce. But the era was also marked by violence. In 1906, the Atlanta Race Riot erupted when White mobs attacked Black residents, leaving at least 27 people dead and more than 70 injured, with extensive damage to Black neighborhoods. In 1913, Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory superintendent, was convicted of murdering a 13-year-old girl in a highly publicized trial. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the governor. In 1915, an organized lynch mob abducted Frank from jail and hanged him in Marietta, horrifying Jewish communities in Atlanta and across the country. On the 21st of May 1917, the Great Atlanta Fire destroyed 1,938 buildings in what is now the Old Fourth Ward, killing one person and displacing 10,000. Atlanta's racial complexities were on vivid display on the 15th of December 1939, when the city hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind at Loew's Grand Theatre. The film's producer David O. Selznick and stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland attended the gala event. But Hattie McDaniel, the African-American actress who would win an Oscar for her role, was barred from the premiere under racial segregation laws. The city that styled itself too busy to hate was still very much engaged in that business.

• 5. Civil Rights and Transformation

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  African-American veterans returned from World War II determined to claim the rights they had fought for abroad. In 1948, the mayor of Atlanta ordered the hiring of the first eight African-American police officers in the city, in exchange for support from Black voters. The 1956 Sugar Bowl became an unlikely flashpoint for the city's racial politics. When the Pitt Panthers, with African-American fullback Bobby Grier on the roster, were set to face the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Georgia's Governor Marvin Griffin publicly sent a telegram to the state's Board of Regents demanding that Georgia Tech refuse to participate in a racially integrated event. Georgia Tech's president, Blake R. Van Leer, rejected the demand and threatened to resign. Students from Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia held a protest against Griffin that escalated into a riot; they broke windows, upturned parking meters, hanged Griffin in effigy, and marched to the governor's mansion, surrounding it until 3:30 a.m. On December 5, the Georgia Tech board of regents voted 13 to 1 to allow the game to proceed. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and students from Atlanta's historically Black colleges and universities became central figures in the national civil rights movement. Desegregation came in stages: public transportation was desegregated by 1959, the restaurant at Rich's department store by 1961, movie theaters by 1963, and public schools not until 1973, nearly 20 years after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled segregated schools unconstitutional. By 1970, African Americans were the majority of Atlanta's population. In 1973, they exercised that majority by electing Maynard Jackson as the city's first Black mayor. Under Jackson, Atlanta's airport was modernized, the Georgia World Congress Center opened in 1976, and construction of the city's subway system began in 1975, with rail service starting in 1979.

• 6. The Olympic Wager

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  Atlanta's selection as the host city for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games was a pivotal moment. For the first time in Olympic history, all 197 national Olympic committees invited to compete sent athletes, with more than 10,000 contestants competing in a record 271 events. The $1.7 billion cost of the games was, for the first time in Olympic history, entirely privately funded. The games were not without difficulties: transportation and accommodation problems drew criticism, and the Centennial Olympic Park bombing occurred despite heightened security. But according to former Mayor Kasim Reed, the games generated a direct economic impact of at least five billion dollars. The related Olympic Legacy Program and civic efforts triggered a fundamental transformation of the city in the following decade. The games accelerated gentrification and brought new investment to Atlanta's universities, parks, and tourism infrastructure. Two years after the closing ceremony, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport became the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic in 1998, a title it has held every year since except 2020, handling an estimated 93.7 million passengers in 2022. The Olympic legacy shaped the city's identity as a global transportation hub in a way that the Civil War's aftermath had shaped it as a regional one.

• 7. Atlanta's Living City

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  The 2005 approval of the $2.8 billion Beltline project signaled a new phase in Atlanta's development. The plan called for converting a disused 22-mile freight railroad loop surrounding the central city into an art-filled multi-use trail and light rail transit line, increasing the city's park space by 40%. By 2019, the James M. Cox Foundation contributed six million dollars to the PATH Foundation to connect the Silver Comet Trail to the Beltline; upon completion, the combined trail distance was expected to reach roughly 300 miles, making it the longest paved trail surface in the United States. The Beltline stimulated retail and residential development along its path but was also criticized for displacing some Black communities. Atlanta's cultural scene grew in parallel. The High Museum of Art doubled in size. The Alliance Theatre won a Tony Award. The city became the national leader for film and television production, a status driven in large part by the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act, which awards qualified productions a transferable income tax credit of 20% of in-state costs for film and television investments of at least $500,000. Film and television production injected $9.5 billion into Georgia's economy in 2017 alone, with Atlanta receiving most of the projects. Despite losing more than 100,000 residents between 1970 and 1990, the city has seen significant demographic shifts since the 2000 census. Between 2000 and 2020, Atlanta's White population grew from 33% to 39% of the city's population, while the Black share declined from 67% in 1990 to 47% in 2020. Atlanta was selected on the 16th of June 2022, as a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, continuing a tradition of bringing world-stage events to a city that has never been content to think small.