oldhouseman
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Atlanta 1864 Detailed photographs
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Wonderful. Some of the best images of old Atlanta I've seen.
I am curious as to how many of these old brick buildings may have been left standing when I was a child.
The really old brick buildings I recall from the areas of Whitehall,Alabama,Pryor,Marietta streets,etc. I had assumed were remnants of the late 1800's. Now that I think about it-----in the mid-1950's, those would not have really been all THAT old. Is it possible they had been from the mid-1800's? The patent response from adults in those days was that anything really old was newer than 1865 because "the damned yankees had burned everything down"(much to my "yankee" parent's chagrin)----but brick doesn't burn very well.
I recall the area around Wee Kirk and the Capitol building especially westward towards Pryor St. was loaded with old brick buildings years ago. But once south of Whitehall the neighborhood became residential. (I remember the trees lining Pryor St. were so thick it was like the same tunnel effect one gets today, veering off of Piedmont onto Morningside when the trees are full of foliage.)
There are still some of those old buildings left standing going west on Whitehall.
Somewhere there is question of whether or not a "slope" still exists down in the Underground, and indeed it does----at least I recall one that runs (roughly) north and south.
I am curious as to how many of these old brick buildings may have been left standing when I was a child.
The really old brick buildings I recall from the areas of Whitehall,Alabama,Pryor,Marietta streets,etc. I had assumed were remnants of the late 1800's. Now that I think about it-----in the mid-1950's, those would not have really been all THAT old. Is it possible they had been from the mid-1800's? The patent response from adults in those days was that anything really old was newer than 1865 because "the damned yankees had burned everything down"(much to my "yankee" parent's chagrin)----but brick doesn't burn very well.
I recall the area around Wee Kirk and the Capitol building especially westward towards Pryor St. was loaded with old brick buildings years ago. But once south of Whitehall the neighborhood became residential. (I remember the trees lining Pryor St. were so thick it was like the same tunnel effect one gets today, veering off of Piedmont onto Morningside when the trees are full of foliage.)
There are still some of those old buildings left standing going west on Whitehall.
Somewhere there is question of whether or not a "slope" still exists down in the Underground, and indeed it does----at least I recall one that runs (roughly) north and south.
oldhouseman
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I remember
those buildings also Steve. I visited Atlanta several times as a child and always wondered why Atlantans tear everything down so often. My great-great grandfather had a plantation where Phipps Plaza sits today. He was conscripted into the 9th Ga. Battalion during the war and his wife wrote in her diary about hear the cannonading at the battle of peachtree creek (where piedmont hospital is today). I remember back in 1983 I saw construction going on at the corner of peachtree and 14th and thinking the base of an older building that had been uncovered looked 1850ish. The next day construction was halted because an unexploded union shell was found in side the foundation of the older construction. I think Atlanta has built over many older buildings and underground atlanta is a fraction of what is really under the city.
Seeing these pictures makes me think I need to get a metal detector and go around my house and grounds.
Do you remember those really big houses that used to line peachtree from around 26th street to about where Lenox is today? Most got torn down in the 60's to 80's to make room for the office buildings and shopping centers. There used to be a federal style plantation house built in 1835 where Roswell Rd. and Peachtree come togeather. I found a newspaper ad listing the house for sale just after the war. It said there was "Minor cannon damage to one wall from the late conflict but otherwise in good state of repair". That one did not make it see the next century. I couldn't find a record of it on maps or on the tax rolls after 1880.
those buildings also Steve. I visited Atlanta several times as a child and always wondered why Atlantans tear everything down so often. My great-great grandfather had a plantation where Phipps Plaza sits today. He was conscripted into the 9th Ga. Battalion during the war and his wife wrote in her diary about hear the cannonading at the battle of peachtree creek (where piedmont hospital is today). I remember back in 1983 I saw construction going on at the corner of peachtree and 14th and thinking the base of an older building that had been uncovered looked 1850ish. The next day construction was halted because an unexploded union shell was found in side the foundation of the older construction. I think Atlanta has built over many older buildings and underground atlanta is a fraction of what is really under the city.
Seeing these pictures makes me think I need to get a metal detector and go around my house and grounds.
Do you remember those really big houses that used to line peachtree from around 26th street to about where Lenox is today? Most got torn down in the 60's to 80's to make room for the office buildings and shopping centers. There used to be a federal style plantation house built in 1835 where Roswell Rd. and Peachtree come togeather. I found a newspaper ad listing the house for sale just after the war. It said there was "Minor cannon damage to one wall from the late conflict but otherwise in good state of repair". That one did not make it see the next century. I couldn't find a record of it on maps or on the tax rolls after 1880.
danemodsandy
Well-known member
Old Atlanta:
For those of you brought up on Gone With the Wind, you're looking at an Atlanta that hasn't existed in a long, long time. As Greg has mentioned, Sherman burned the town, and the rebuilding of the Reconstruction era has largely made way to later progress.
One thing that may be of interest to Greg and to other members familiar with Gone With the Wind - the huge exterior sets that represented prewar Atlanta are amazingly accurate. The film's producter, David O. Selznick, hired Atlanta historian Wilbur G. Kurtz to help research and design them. Due to the time frame, which was before photography became a DIY proposition, and due to the burning of the city, which destroyed a lot of historical records and ephemera, there wasn't really all that much research material available.
Kurtz did find enough old photos and drawings to do a bang-up job on the sets; there are storefronts with names of actual Atlanta merchants of the period, and the "car shed," Atlanta's makeshift train station of the time, is reproduced very well.
Kurtz was also employed to work on the sets of Tara and Twelve Oaks, but he didn't get as much historical accuracy into those as he had on the Atlanta sets. Selznick wanted a romantic, impressive look to those sets, and so he overruled Kurtz on a lot of things. Tara really shouldn't have had columns on its front, according to history and to Kurtz and Margaret Mitchell, but Selznick wanted columns and Selznick got columns. Kurtz was able to get them made square, of whitewashed brick, instead of grand Corinthian columns, so there was at least some concession to the realities of antebellum Clayton County. But Kurtz was unable to stop Selznick from making Twelve Oaks downright ludicrous in scale and grandeur, with twin flying staircases and enough ornate plasterwork for a state Capitol building. Margaret Mitchell told a friend that she didn't know whether to laugh or throw up when she saw photos of the Twelve Oaks set.
There are some small errors in the Atlanta sets - Aunt Pitty's house is on the wrong side of Peachtree, and the relatively flat Selznick International backlot didn't lend itself to reproducing the hilly, up-and-down nature of some Atlanta streets (part of downtown are reminiscent of San Francisco, the grades are so steep). But Kurtz got it as right as circumstances permitted, no mean feat when you're working for a epic control freak like Selznick.
Greg: I wonder if you remember the horse farm that was at Peachtree and Lenox, where Lenox Square is today? It was called "Joyeuse." I have very faint memories of it from when I was really small; we lived almost in Chamblee at the time, and Dad worked in Brookhaven, so we passed that area a lot. I remember the remnants of your great-great grandfather's plantation behind Phipps; there was an overseer's house or something still remaining of it up into the 1970s, and the sculptor who did the Cor-Ten steel sculpture originally in front of Colony Square (now sadly moved to the side) lived in it. I went to a party or two there back in the day.
For those of you brought up on Gone With the Wind, you're looking at an Atlanta that hasn't existed in a long, long time. As Greg has mentioned, Sherman burned the town, and the rebuilding of the Reconstruction era has largely made way to later progress.
One thing that may be of interest to Greg and to other members familiar with Gone With the Wind - the huge exterior sets that represented prewar Atlanta are amazingly accurate. The film's producter, David O. Selznick, hired Atlanta historian Wilbur G. Kurtz to help research and design them. Due to the time frame, which was before photography became a DIY proposition, and due to the burning of the city, which destroyed a lot of historical records and ephemera, there wasn't really all that much research material available.
Kurtz did find enough old photos and drawings to do a bang-up job on the sets; there are storefronts with names of actual Atlanta merchants of the period, and the "car shed," Atlanta's makeshift train station of the time, is reproduced very well.
Kurtz was also employed to work on the sets of Tara and Twelve Oaks, but he didn't get as much historical accuracy into those as he had on the Atlanta sets. Selznick wanted a romantic, impressive look to those sets, and so he overruled Kurtz on a lot of things. Tara really shouldn't have had columns on its front, according to history and to Kurtz and Margaret Mitchell, but Selznick wanted columns and Selznick got columns. Kurtz was able to get them made square, of whitewashed brick, instead of grand Corinthian columns, so there was at least some concession to the realities of antebellum Clayton County. But Kurtz was unable to stop Selznick from making Twelve Oaks downright ludicrous in scale and grandeur, with twin flying staircases and enough ornate plasterwork for a state Capitol building. Margaret Mitchell told a friend that she didn't know whether to laugh or throw up when she saw photos of the Twelve Oaks set.
There are some small errors in the Atlanta sets - Aunt Pitty's house is on the wrong side of Peachtree, and the relatively flat Selznick International backlot didn't lend itself to reproducing the hilly, up-and-down nature of some Atlanta streets (part of downtown are reminiscent of San Francisco, the grades are so steep). But Kurtz got it as right as circumstances permitted, no mean feat when you're working for a epic control freak like Selznick.
Greg: I wonder if you remember the horse farm that was at Peachtree and Lenox, where Lenox Square is today? It was called "Joyeuse." I have very faint memories of it from when I was really small; we lived almost in Chamblee at the time, and Dad worked in Brookhaven, so we passed that area a lot. I remember the remnants of your great-great grandfather's plantation behind Phipps; there was an overseer's house or something still remaining of it up into the 1970s, and the sculptor who did the Cor-Ten steel sculpture originally in front of Colony Square (now sadly moved to the side) lived in it. I went to a party or two there back in the day.
oldhouseman
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Well Theo
it was one of the issues of the war. One of my fellow archivist had ancestors who were slaves on my ancestors plantation. We are actually distant cousins. In 1860 my ancestor listed 4 "Mulatto house servants/male" on his estate inventory. In 1870 he is claiming them as his sons. One of those sons is her great great grandfather. My second great grandfather is her third great grandfather. Small world huh.
One of our last staff members hired is from Germany. She married an american soldier stationed there some years ago. When I inquired about her married name and checked census records it turns out I am related to her husband. We have the same 4th great grandmother. It's a big thing in the south to know your genealogical relations close and distant.
As a southerner I find it bothersome to see the destruction being carried out on the civilian population in a city that had already surrendered. War is the sum total of all evil....
it was one of the issues of the war. One of my fellow archivist had ancestors who were slaves on my ancestors plantation. We are actually distant cousins. In 1860 my ancestor listed 4 "Mulatto house servants/male" on his estate inventory. In 1870 he is claiming them as his sons. One of those sons is her great great grandfather. My second great grandfather is her third great grandfather. Small world huh.
One of our last staff members hired is from Germany. She married an american soldier stationed there some years ago. When I inquired about her married name and checked census records it turns out I am related to her husband. We have the same 4th great grandmother. It's a big thing in the south to know your genealogical relations close and distant.
As a southerner I find it bothersome to see the destruction being carried out on the civilian population in a city that had already surrendered. War is the sum total of all evil....
oldhouseman
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Well Theo
it was one of the issues of the war. One of my fellow archivist had ancestors who were slaves on my ancestors plantation. We are actually distant cousins. In 1860 my ancestor listed 4 "Mulatto house servants/male" on his estate inventory. In 1870 he is claiming them as his sons. One of those sons is her great great grandfather. My second great grandfather is her third great grandfather. Small world huh.
One of our last staff members hired is from Germany. She married an american soldier stationed there some years ago. When I inquired about her married name and checked census records it turns out I am related to her husband. We have the same 4th great grandmother. It's a big thing in the south to know your genealogical relations close and distant.
As a southerner I find it bothersome to see the destruction being carried out on the civilian population in a city that had already surrendered. War is the sum total of all evil....
it was one of the issues of the war. One of my fellow archivist had ancestors who were slaves on my ancestors plantation. We are actually distant cousins. In 1860 my ancestor listed 4 "Mulatto house servants/male" on his estate inventory. In 1870 he is claiming them as his sons. One of those sons is her great great grandfather. My second great grandfather is her third great grandfather. Small world huh.
One of our last staff members hired is from Germany. She married an american soldier stationed there some years ago. When I inquired about her married name and checked census records it turns out I am related to her husband. We have the same 4th great grandmother. It's a big thing in the south to know your genealogical relations close and distant.
As a southerner I find it bothersome to see the destruction being carried out on the civilian population in a city that had already surrendered. War is the sum total of all evil....
oldhouseman
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Sorry for
the double post.
Thanks for the info. Sandy. I think what we remembers about the city tells our age! The first time my grandfather took me to atlanta 285 was still mostly a gravel road, only about half finished.
The first year I worked at Archives I was giving a tour to s school group and showed an 1858 map of the city to the middle school age kids. One of them asked "why does it have an American flag instead of our flag (stars and bars). He looked confused when I told we were still part of the Union in 1858. He blurted out "LORD NO,...HUSH!"
the double post.
Thanks for the info. Sandy. I think what we remembers about the city tells our age! The first time my grandfather took me to atlanta 285 was still mostly a gravel road, only about half finished.
The first year I worked at Archives I was giving a tour to s school group and showed an 1858 map of the city to the middle school age kids. One of them asked "why does it have an American flag instead of our flag (stars and bars). He looked confused when I told we were still part of the Union in 1858. He blurted out "LORD NO,...HUSH!"
danemodsandy
Well-known member
Theo:
Yes, seeing that is upsetting, but it's good to remember that the Civil War was fought to change it, and that it has been changed for nearly 150 years now. It's also well to remember that most industrialised nations of the nineteenth century were not exactly enlightened when it came to observing the rights and sovereignty of non-Caucasian people; slavery was not the only evil perpetrated during that time. Basically, so-called "modern" nations were on a spree of empire-building - colonising other lands and exploiting their resources on a wholesale basis, whether the inhabitants of those colonies liked it or not.
Both America and many European nations have much to answer for.
Yes, seeing that is upsetting, but it's good to remember that the Civil War was fought to change it, and that it has been changed for nearly 150 years now. It's also well to remember that most industrialised nations of the nineteenth century were not exactly enlightened when it came to observing the rights and sovereignty of non-Caucasian people; slavery was not the only evil perpetrated during that time. Basically, so-called "modern" nations were on a spree of empire-building - colonising other lands and exploiting their resources on a wholesale basis, whether the inhabitants of those colonies liked it or not.
Both America and many European nations have much to answer for.
There were many old residences along Peachtree. They were as far into town as Harris street when I was a child. When I think back, I remember the area where Lenox Square is now to have been elevated from Peachtree Rd. instead of being lower as it is now. I recall a residence of the former publisher of the Constitution as having a home up in there. Don't recall the horse farm Sandy mentions at all! Funny how selective our memories can be! Georgedon and I used to talk about what we remembered about Buckhead when growing up. Sometimes we remembered much the same stuff.
I went to High School with a fellow named Ben Noble. His family owned a lot of property around that intersection and I had the idea that they must have ended up owning Phipps plaza as well. Are ya'll related?
Anyway, that reminds me of how many beautiful homes were demolished between I-85 and Peachtree on Lenox Rd. That area is now a condo swamp.
It amuses me at how many people think Atlanta has always been this huge metropolis, because when I was a child it was hooterville. As an early teen I can remember thinking that I would be glad if Atlanta ever became a "big city" one day which was really goofy considering how much it had grown since I was a child!
Well I'm glad I have the fond memories I do have of it all, because the Atlanta of my childhood (and the "old southern" mentality, is truly "Gone with the Wind".
I went to High School with a fellow named Ben Noble. His family owned a lot of property around that intersection and I had the idea that they must have ended up owning Phipps plaza as well. Are ya'll related?
Anyway, that reminds me of how many beautiful homes were demolished between I-85 and Peachtree on Lenox Rd. That area is now a condo swamp.
It amuses me at how many people think Atlanta has always been this huge metropolis, because when I was a child it was hooterville. As an early teen I can remember thinking that I would be glad if Atlanta ever became a "big city" one day which was really goofy considering how much it had grown since I was a child!
Well I'm glad I have the fond memories I do have of it all, because the Atlanta of my childhood (and the "old southern" mentality, is truly "Gone with the Wind".
danemodsandy
Well-known member
Gyrafoam:
I also remember wishing that Atlanta would "grow up" - and then being very sorry it did!
Sometime around 1960, the Chamber of Commerce did some creative math, taking in all of Atlanta's bedroom communities and some unincorporated areas, and coined the slogan "City of a Million." It wasn't remotely true at the time; 250-350K might have been a realistic figure.
Even today, if you count residents within the actual city limits, you're just over half a mil. But the metro area is now home to over five-and-a-half million. Damn place now looks like L.A., only less charming.
P.S.: In Scarlett's day, the "big city" she thought was so exciting had a population of under ten thousand.
I also remember wishing that Atlanta would "grow up" - and then being very sorry it did!
Sometime around 1960, the Chamber of Commerce did some creative math, taking in all of Atlanta's bedroom communities and some unincorporated areas, and coined the slogan "City of a Million." It wasn't remotely true at the time; 250-350K might have been a realistic figure.
Even today, if you count residents within the actual city limits, you're just over half a mil. But the metro area is now home to over five-and-a-half million. Damn place now looks like L.A., only less charming.
P.S.: In Scarlett's day, the "big city" she thought was so exciting had a population of under ten thousand.
We used to laugh at the sign by the Darlington, wondering IF it would ever go past a million.
Nowadays, the joke is, that it shows the current population of the Darlington!
Nowadays, the joke is, that it shows the current population of the Darlington!
Fascinating photos - thanks for the link!
Civil War history is riveting. A town of 10,000 must have seemed like a huge, sprawling metropolis for those soldiers that had likely never been more than a few miles from their rural homes.
Civil War history is riveting. A town of 10,000 must have seemed like a huge, sprawling metropolis for those soldiers that had likely never been more than a few miles from their rural homes.
Slave trade...
Of course I've read and heard about slave trade. The Dutch played an important role in this and slavery in Dutch colonies was only abolished in 1863, shame on us! But I never saw photographic evidence like this. For me this has more emotional impact than stories or drawings.
Of course I've read and heard about slave trade. The Dutch played an important role in this and slavery in Dutch colonies was only abolished in 1863, shame on us! But I never saw photographic evidence like this. For me this has more emotional impact than stories or drawings.
