Atlanta And Its Builders, Vol. 1 - A Comprehensive History Of The Gate City Of The South. Thomas H. Martin
on the southwest with Montgomery by rail, thence by water with Mobile. New Orleans, and all the lower Mississippi; also with Columbus and all southwestern Georgia, and with Savannah and the Atlantic through Macon. By the Georgia Railroad with Augusta, Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, most of the prominent places in North and South Carolina, Virginia and the great northern cities. Another railroad is now in projection, and considerable progress made towards its accomplishment, in the direction of Anderson Court House, S. C, through the beautiful and productive country known as Northeast Georgia; and another still has been chartered from this point to the great and inexhaustible coal fields of northeastern Alabama, destined to supply fuel and motive power to the teeming millions that shall inhabit these lands for untold ages. Forty-four freight and passenger trains arrive and depart daily from the city.
"The Ocmulgee river, which flows to the Atlantic, has its source in the central part of the city. The head spring of South river, its principal tributary, being located within the railroad reserve, near the present passenger depot, its precise spot being now indicated by the large perennial cistern between the Holland House and the Macon and Western depot, on the south side of the railroad track; while Walton Spring, an early celebrity of the place, situated a little north of the road, flows into the Chattahoochee, and thence to the Gulf of Mexico; so that here in the heart of the city the marriage of the waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf might have been celebrated high in the air by our own engine companies, drawing their supplies the while from the natural fountains, flowing thence to their far distant destinations in the bosom of the Atlantic and the Gulf. But Charleston must needs go to Memphis, that old Ocean, pent up in hoops and staves, may be received into the embraces of his Amazon bride, and the Father of Waters is shorn of his glories and changed into a huge water station on the road to the West.
"The incorporated shape of the city is a circle two miles in diameter, with a handle of half a mile in length and six hundred yards wide along the line of the Macon and Western Railroad. It covers a portion of sixteen original land lots, each of which was laid off upon a plan to suit the views of the respective owners, and hence our streets are not so regular in width and uniform in direction as is desirable — many of them being much too narrow for public convenience.
"The population of the city is remarkable for its activity and enterprise. Most of the inhabitants came here for the purpose of bettering their fortunes by engaging actively in business, and this presents the anomaly of having very few aged persons residing in it: and our people show their democratic impulses by each allowing his neighbor to attend to his own business, and our ladies, even, are allowed to attend to their own domestic and household affairs without being ruled out of respectable society.
"Atlanta is a name which is understood to have been proposed by J. Edgar Thompson, at that time chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad. The signification of the name, the reasons for its adoption, and the various theories on the subject have now become a theme of inquiry and investigation not without interest. The writer has heard it claimed as due in honor to a mythological goddess, Atlanta, said to have been remarkable for fleetness, strength and endurance. It was certainly a fast town then, and may have been supposed entitled to the honor of a recognition by the goddess, by reason of its early character and its wonderful achievements. The infant has become a giant, and is rapidly overcoming the obstacles to its growth and prosperity, and making the surrounding country and neighboring villages all tributary to its prosperity, permanency and celebrity. The name was for a short time written Atalanta, which seems to favor the claims of the goddess. An orator of no mean pretentions claimed for it the significance of 'a city among the hills,' while a shrewd writer has declared that it was the opposite, and proclaimed it 'the city in the woods.' And its commercial and geographical position has recently procured for it the appellation of 'the Gate City.'
"And still another theory is set up by some who claim for it an origin more worthy of its present importance as a railroad entrepot and commercial emporium, taken in connection with its future prospects as a great railroad center and manufacturing city. The great state work, connecting the waters of the West with the Atlantic, commencing at Chattanooga, on the Tennessee river, and terminating at this point, had nearly been completed. The name Western and Atlantic railroad had been given to it by the legislature of Georgia, and it was not inaptly considered the great connecting artery through which must pass the incalculable mass of produce, manufacture and commerce from the great valley of the West and the Atlantic coast, and the imports from abroad passing thence to the far West.
"Atlanta had been permanently fixed as the southeastern terminus of that great state work, and gave a local idea to its eastern terminus, and that idea, represented or qualified by the adjective Atlanta, was incomplete of itself, but clearly pointed to something more definite, and the mind is put upon the inquiry for the thing signified. The connections by rail from Charleston by way of Augusta, and from Savannah, by way of Macon, had both been completed to this point. Those roads had been gradually ascending the hills from the coast, in search of a 'northwest passage,' they had searched the hills upon which the city stands, and here they met the Western and Atlantic road, just emerging from the wilds of the northwest, seeking by a sinuous and difficult ascent from the Western valley for a highway to the Atlantic.
They met together in our streets, they embraced each other upon these headlands of the Atlantic.
"These Atlantic . headlands, when embodied in the noun Atlanta, to our mind, meets the demand and represents the ideal of the thing sought after, and the mind rests upon it as the thing signified by the several indices pointing to Atlanta as the proper name for such a city in such a place. This we now state to the public as the true derivation sustained by the facts in the case.
"Atlanta has had a growth unexampled in the history of the South. In 1854 the population had reached 6,025. The increase for the several years has averaged 1 ,000 per annum. On the first of April, 1859, it is ascertained by the census-taker, under state authority, to be 11,500 souls. The assessed value of the real estate in the city the present year, 1859, is $2,760,000, and the personality, cash, merchandise, etc., in proportion.
"The number of stores in 1854 was fifty-seven, exclusive of drinking saloons. The amount of goods sold in 1853 was $1,017,000, and the amount sold in 1858 is not accurately known, but is believed to have been about $3,000,000, and is now rapidly increasing. It is now widening and extending the area of its supply on every side. Dry goods are sold to the country for over one hundred miles around on terms as favorable to purchasers as the retail markets of the great Northern cities, New York itself not excepted, and still our merchants are prosperous, thrifty and energetic. No respectable house here had to suspend during the great crisis in commercial affairs in 1857 and 1858.
"The great secret of the safety, success and independence of convulsions is to be found in the fact that sales are made at low rates, almost entirely for cash, and the profits, though small in detail, are often repeated and amount to a vast sum in the aggregate; a few have fallen by unfortunate speculations.
"The number of stores and other business houses at present is unknown to the writer. Nineteen commodious brick stores were erected in 1858, and as many more are now in progress of erection in 1859, besides a large number of fine dwellings, mostly of brick. Many of the new improvements are imposing structures, and would be creditable in the elegant portions of our modern cities.
"There are at present four capacious hotels, now open and in successful operation, and another still more extensive is nearly completed, designed, we understand, for the accommodation of families, hitherto a felt necessity in the city.
"The city now has in successful operation four large and flourishing machine shops, two of which are connected with railroad companies, and two belong to private individuals, where stationary engines, mill gearing, with almost every variety of castings and machinery are manufactured at short notice. Two planing mills and sash and blind factories are also in successful operation; besides, there are numerous smaller manufacturing establishments in the city; three or four tanneries, one or two shoe manufactories, besides several smaller establishments. The most important establishment in the place is the rolling mill for the manufacture of railroad iron, which is capable of turning out thirty tons of railroad iron of superior quality.
"The clothing trade has become an item of no inconsiderable importance within the