ATLANTA
A TWENTIETH-CENTURY CITY
The Illuminated Cover of
this Pamphlet is a reproduction
of the Famous Picture
“ATLANTA BY NIGHT”
published by Harper’s Weekly
in the issue of October 10th,
1903, and here presented by
courtesy of Harper & Bros.
ISSUED BY THE
Atlanta Chamber of Commerce
1904
THE BYRD PRINTING CO., ATLANTA
UNION PASSENGER STATION.
How Atlanta Grew.
The Atlanta of to-day is a growth of thirty-eight years. Twice has theupbuilding of a city on this site demonstrated its natural advantages.Within a few years before the war Atlanta had become a bustling town of11,000 inhabitants, and during the three years which intervened before itsdestruction the place was the seat of varied and important industries,whose principal object was to sustain the military operations of theConfederacy. It was also a depot for the distribution of supplies to thesurrounding country and a forwarding station for the commissary departmentof the army.
After its baptism of fire in November, 1861, when the inhabitants had beendispersed by the exigencies of war, and of more than 2,000 houses only 300remained, the city took a new start, and its great growth dates from thattime. It is therefore, a city of the new regime, erected on the ruins ofthe old.
The coat of arms of Atlanta fittingly typifies this remarkable history. Nocity on the continent has survived such destruction. No city has twiceattained prominence with such rapidity. Atlanta’s foundation reaches backto the forties, and far-seeing men recognized it then as the place ofpromise, destined to be an important railroad-center and a seat ofcommerce. This conception of the new city had been accepted as a true onewhen it was destroyed by fire, and since its new birth in reconstructiondays the old spirit arose and lighted the new path of Atlanta to a greaterdestiny.
The capital of the state was brought here from Milledgeville when the newcity was hardly out of the ashes of war, and this gave a great impetus toits growth, which was further insured in 1877, when the people of Georgiavoted to make Atlanta their capital. Its rapidly developing business andmanufactures were brought to the attention of the whole country by theCotton Exposition of 1881 which was a point of departure for thetremendous development of the Southeastern States during the decadebetween 1880 and 1890. This development found a splendid illustration inthe great Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895.
The rapidity of the growth of Atlanta is illustrated by the fact that,[Pg 4]since it was blotted from the map, the city has spread over twelve squaremiles of ground. Starting with no business in 1865, it received in 1903four-tenths of the freight delivered in Georgia, and its post officereceipts were four-tenths of those of the State. Thirty-nine years agothere was hardly a dollar to tur