This was, indeed, a curious spot to build a town. Unlike any of the previously established European-style cities in the New World, the wilderness that was to become Atlanta had few redeeming qualities to white settlers—deep in the northwest Georgia woods, more than 1,000 feet above sea level, near no commercially navigable waterway, on land of marginal agricultural value in an area sporadically settled and hunted by the sometimes-hostile Cherokee and Creek Nations, and on land that a Federal treaty declared permanently “Indian territory.” Even to the ancient Native American nations, little seemed attractive about the area surrounding what some called “Hog Ridge”; although Native Americans had lived in and around the future glittering downtown area for some 8,000 years, by the early 19th century, no village stood on this spot.
But in the early 1800s, Georgia, the largest state east of the Mississippi River, badly needed a better transportation corridor between the coastal ports and towns to the interior trade routes along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in order to become commercially competitive with other states. In 1826, state surveyors began mapping out possible routes between the state capital of Milledgeville and the river port of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Initially, some thought was given to building a grand canal between the two towns, but the first survey of the rocky, mountainous terrain dashed that idea.
Instead, in 1837 engineers for the Western & Atlantic Railroad surveyed a route from Chattanooga southeast to a hilltop spot 7 miles east of the Chattahoochee River, at a point where three tall granite ridges converged. Here, the new line was to link with the planned extension of the Georgia Railroad from Augusta and Milledgeville, as well as planned extensions of railroads from other parts of the state. In what today would seem an unacceptable damper on free-market competition, that same year the state legislature voted to fund and build the new rail line, in direct competition with other railroad companies also planning to move into the newly opened territory.
The tiny railroad settlement atop the granite ridgeline had a humble beginning. Even its name—Terminus—said this was the end of the line. “The terminus,” declared W&A engineer Stephen Long in 1837, “will be a good location for one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else.”
In fact, as unbelievable as it would have seemed at the time, little Terminus (briefly called Marthasville, then Atlanta) was already on its way to becoming the economic and cultural center of the southern United States. Just 20 years after regular train service began, Atlanta was linked by rail to Chattanooga, Tennessee; Augusta, Georgia; Macon, Georgia; Mobile, Alabama; and many points beyond.
Because the tracks made it a crossroads in the quickly booming overland transportation industry, Atlanta evolved from the start as a new kind of town: an inland port. People, goods, money, and news were always moving through. The constant flow of travelers and rough-and-ready railroad men gave the town a bawdy flavor. The first tavern opened in 1835; the first church-and-schoolhouse had to wait until 1845. In the first mayoral election in 1848, the temperance candidate was defeated by a Decatur Street tinsmith and still-maker backed by the Free and Rowdy Party. The name of the town itself is a reflection of this heritage—it is the coined feminine version of “Atlantic,” to designate the depot of the Western & Atlantic Railroad.
From the very beginning, Atlanta promoted itself as a modern city, different from the tradition-bound South. Atlanta’s bustling, forward-looking spirit is well evidenced in the following two items quoted by Norman Shavin and Bruce Galphin in their excellent illustrated history, Atlanta: Triumph of a People. An educator who arrived in 1847 found the citizens quite welcoming, noting that they “bow and shake hands with everybody they meet, as there are so many coming in all the time that they cannot remember with whom they are acquainted.” And an 1859 city directory boasted, “Our people show their democratic impulses by each allowing his neighbor to attend to his own business, and our ladies are even allowed to attend to their domestic and household affairs without being ruled out of respectable society.” Between 1850 and 1860 Atlanta’s population swelled from 2,500 to nearly 10,000.