Marching Through the Heart of Atlanta’s Past

Discovering the old Atlanta is a lot like going on an archeological expedition: You have to know where to dig and what to look for--and it pays to have a lively imagination.

Unlike such other historic Southern cities as Charleston, S.C, or Savannah, Ga., Atlanta offers no dramatic vistas of white-columned antebellum mansions or live-oak-canopied, Colonial squares to make its past come easily alive.

Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, a man still remembered here as being a little too fond of fire, reduced most of the city of “Gone with the Wind” legend to ashes during the Civil War. Since then, successive generations of builders and developers have been no less sparing of the past, razing landmark after landmark in the name of progress.

But if historical sleuthing appeals to you--and if you have an archeologist’s knack for envisioning the whole from the merest part--then a search for the old Atlanta amid the new Atlanta’s glittering skyscrapers and fast-paced freeways can provide unending hours of adventure and discovery.

Although young in age as Southern cities go, Atlanta boasts a rich and varied past. Born as a railhead in the north Georgia wilderness in the 1830s, the town known successively as Terminus, Marthasville and Atlanta quickly grew into a bustling crossroads of travel and commerce in antebellum Dixie.

During the Civil War, it earned undying glory as the “Citadel of the Confederacy,” serving the Rebel cause as a strategic railroad hub, supply depot and hospital center. Sherman, in fact, complained that Atlanta did more to keep the war going than any other Southern city, excepting possibly Richmond, Va., the Confederate capital.

With characteristic optimism and energy, Atlanta rose from the ashes of war and became a showplace of the “New South” economic boosterism movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, it ranks as the premier city of the Southeast--the region’s leading financial and commercial center, a popular national convention site and, with one of the world’s busiest airports, a major transportation hub.

The following introductory walking tour will carry visitors on a quest back in time to Atlanta’s 19th-Century railroad era, one of the most dramatic and eventful periods in the city’s history.

The trail winds through a roughly six-square-block area around the downtown state capitol, and can easily be contracted or expanded to fill as much of a spare morning or afternoon as you care to give it.

The starting point, appropriately enough, is the Zero Milepost, Atlanta’s oldest surviving man-made monument and--despite its rather unimpressive appearance--one of the city’s most hallowed historic treasures.

It is located by the side of the tracks under the Central Avenue viaduct. To reach it, take the elevator inside the viaduct’s public parking garage marked “90 Central Avenue” to the train level and follow your nose to the tracks.

A small, well-worn white stone obelisk, the milepost was erected in 1850 to mark the southern terminus of Atlanta’s first railroad: the Western & Atlantic, a 138-mile line created by the state to link north Georgia with Chattanooga, Tenn., then a gateway to lucrative “western” agricultural markets.

The first train pulled out of here on Dec. 24, 1842, on a one-day, round-trip excursion to Marietta, 12 miles to the northwest. The train consisted of a locomotive, a single passenger coach and one freight car, each of which had to be hauled overland from elsewhere in the state.

Nevertheless, with that inauspicious beginning, the railroad age in Atlanta was begun in earnest.

Today, the only trains leaving from this spot are the restored vintage passenger coaches of the New Georgia Railroad. Run by the state as a tourist attraction, the line offers daytime excursions each Saturday on a history-filled loop around the city and to nearby Stone Mountain, one of Atlanta’s scenic wonders.

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, you can combine a rail tour with an elegant meal on the dinner excursions the line also offers.

Just next door to the milepost is another prized landmark from Atlanta’s 19th-Century railroad age. It is the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot, a one-story, red-brick building that is Atlanta’s oldest surviving building (or part of a building: a three-story, cupolaed office tower that once graced the front was destroyed by fire in 1935).

Built in 1869 for the then princely sum of $35,000, its dedication four years after the Civil War was an occasion of immense civic pride for a city still struggling to recover from the wartime devastation.

More than three-quarters of the residential community and virtually the entire business district were destroyed by Sherman. When Atlanta’s citizens reoccupied the town, the municipal treasury was down to its last $1.64--all in Confederate money.

Just across the street from the depot is Underground Atlanta, a $142-million “festival marketplace” that incorporates into its multilevel design the refurbished remnants of Atlanta’s turn-of-the-century downtown--a city-center that was “buried” in the 1920s when Atlanta raised the street level to overpass the rail lines.

A series of walking-tour markers will help you locate the spots of historic interest. Among the key attractions are the five-story Block Building (built in 1882), which once housed a candy factory on its upper floors; a portion of the original facade of the Hotel Jackson (1892), one of old Atlanta’s most popular hostelries, and a rusticated stone wall from the Gate City Bank Building (1884).

One of the 50 street lamps erected by the Atlanta Gas Light Co. in 1856 also may be seen here, close to the spot where it originally stood. The hole in its base was left by a Yankee cannonball during Sherman’s siege of Atlanta.

The history of 19th-Century Atlanta’s most famous product can be explored without much digging at the three-story World of Coca-Cola, which is adjacent to Underground at the opposite end of the plaza from the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot.

John S. Pemberton, a local pharmacist, created the drink in 1886 out of a syrup he concocted in his back-yard kettle that blended water, sugar, coca leaves and kola nuts. It was first served at the soda fountain of Jacobs’ Pharmacy, which once occupied the southwest corner of Peachtree and Marietta streets.

Just behind the Coca-Cola pavilion, at the southeast corner of Central Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, stands Atlanta’s second-oldest surviving building: the red-brick, Gothic-style Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which was erected in 1873.

The original church, a one-story wooden structure, was built on this site in 1848. Father Thomas O’Reilly, a priest appointed to serve there in 1861, earned a niche in Atlanta’s pantheon of heroes for persuading Union commanders to spare his church and four others that once stood in this vicinity from fire when Atlanta was torched.

“If you burn the Catholic church,” he warned, “all Catholics in the ranks of the Union Army will mutiny.”

Sherman made his Atlanta headquarters not far away at the John Neal Home, an imposing 2 1/2-story, white-columned mansion that once stood at the southwest corner of Washington and Mitchell streets. That spot is now part of the grounds surrounding Atlanta’s City Hall. A plaque there commemorates O’Reilly’s heroism.

Another historic building in this vicinity is the Central Presbyterian Church, a graceful natural-stone building with Romanesque detailing, located on Washington Street just across from the gold-domed Georgia capitol.

The original church was erected on this spot in 1860 and was among those spared during the burning of Atlanta. It was razed in 1883 to make way for the present structure.

The final stop on this journey back in time is the state capitol itself, a neoclassic-style building whose dome has been a landmark feature of Atlanta’s skyline for more than a century.

Built of Indiana limestone and finished inside with Georgia marble, the building was formally dedicated on July 4, 1889. In an achievement that was as miraculous for a public works project then as it would be now, the building came in $118.34 under its $1-million construction budget.

The gold overlay on the dome, however, is of more recent vintage. It was applied in 1958 with gold from the north Georgia town of Dahlonega, an early 19th-Century gold-rush site.

The capitol is a treasure trove of history. Start with a tour of the statues, monuments and plaques dotting the grounds. Besides the usual memorials to Confederate heroes and legendary politicians, there also is a sculpture honoring the 33 black state legislators expelled from the Legislature in 1868 in a dark chapter of Georgia’s Reconstruction history.

Inside the building are numerous exhibits, statues and paintings of historic interest, as well as a museum devoted to Georgia’s natural and human history.

From the grounds of the capitol, you can also look upon the modern-day city and marvel at how far Atlanta has come--from the tiny railway settlement that the chief surveyor for the first railroad once sourly predicted would be good for “one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store--and nothing else.”

GUIDEBOOK

Walking Downtown Atlanta

Before you start any tour, visit the downtown branch of the Atlanta Historical Society, 140 Peachtree St. NW, Atlanta, Ga. 30303, telephone (404) 238-0655. Open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Ask to see “Greetings from Atlanta,” an 18-minute videotape that provides a vivid introduction to Atlanta’s history. Maps, guides and history books are available at the gift shop.

Guided walking tours of Atlanta’s historic districts are offered April through November by the Atlanta Preservation Center, 401 The Flatiron Building, 84 Peachtree St. NW, Atlanta 30303, (404) 522-4345.

To check schedules and reserve tickets on the New Georgia Railroad, contact the Georgia Building Authority, 1 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Atlanta 30334, (404) 656-0769.

For hours of operation and details of upcoming programs at the state capitol, contact the Capitol Tours and Special Events Office, Room 214, State Capitol, Atlanta, Ga. 30334, (404) 656-2844.

Atlanta 1. Underground Atlanta 2. Zero Mile Post 3. Georgia Railroad Freight Depot 4. World of Coca-Cola 5. City Hall and former site of John Neal Home 6. Central Presbyterian Church 7. State Capitol 8. Shrine of the Immaculate Conception