Atlanta, Georgia

“ Prohibition—has been very successful in Atlanta, Georgia in the past 18 months. It is well enforced. The wealth of the city has increased; property has advanced in value; the laboring classes are more prosperous; the schools are better attended ”

“ Atlanta buried yesterday her greatest citizen, and Georgia mourns the death of her most brilliant son. Not only Atlanta and Georgia bewail an irreparable loss, but the whole South joins in the lamentation, while beyond her boundaries the great North, so lately thrilled by his eloquence, stands with uncovered head at Grady’s tomb.
O measureless sorrow! A young man, with unequaled genius and great, loving heart, has been cut off in his golden promise. The South saw in him her spokesman—her representative to the world. ”

“ Let the emigrant to Georgia feel and realize that his business and social position result from his own industry, his merits and his virtues, and not from the accidental place of his birth, and soon the great advantages of climate, soil, minerals, timber, etc., etc., will fill up your country and make Atlanta one of the most prosperous, beautiful and attractive cities, not alone of the South, but of the whole continent, an end which I desire quite as much as you do. ”

“ Columbus, Americus, Atlanta, and Rome, as well as Savannah, are considerable shipping points, for cotton; Athens is the seat of the university of Georgia; Augusta and Columbus are manufacturing centres; Macon has three religious colleges; Darien, Brunswick, and St manufacture and export lumber. Andersonville, in Sumter county, acquired terrible celebrity during the civil war as the site of the chief military prison of the Southern Confederacy. Atlanta is by far the best example of rapid growth the State affords. ”

“ Atlanta is situated on the great iron highways from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia to Mobile and New Orleans, and from Chicago to Florida. The Western and Atlantic connects Atlanta and the Georgia system with the Tennessee lines at Chattanooga (138 miles) . Several great battles were fought for the possession of this railway during the secession war. The Atlanta and Charlotte Air Line extends to Charlotte, N.C. (269 miles) . ”

“ DOWN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. As my first view of Atlanta was had on a dismal night, (if view it could be called,) so my last impression of it was received on a foggy morning, which showed me, as I sat in the cars of the Macon train, waiting at the depot, groups of rain-drenched negroes around out-door fires; the dimly seen trees of the Park; tall ruins looming through the mist; Masonic Hall standing alone (having escaped destruction) ; squat wooden buildings of recent, hasty construction, beside it; windrows of bent railroad iron by the track; piles of brick ”

“ THE Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition was created through the zeal and enterprise of a number of the patriotic citizens of the city of Atlanta and of the State of Georgia, and, on the 18th day of September, 1895, when its doors were opened to the world, naught but words of admiration and praise could be spoken for the men, who, through the devotion of their energies, time and money, had made it in every way a success. ”

“ Thus we see diminishing with amazing rapidity that rural population that is the strength and the safety of the people—slow to anger and thus a safeguard, but terrible in its wrath, and thus a tremendous corrective power. No greater calamity could befall any country than the sacrifice of its town and village and country life. I rejoice in Atlanta’s growth, and yet I wonder whether it is worth what it cost when I know that her population has been drawn largely from rural Georgia, and that back of her grandeur are thousands of deserted farms and dismantled homes. ”

“ GEORGIA JOURNALISM
In journalism Atlanta is far in advance of many cities of her size, North or South. The Atlanta "Constitution," founded nearly half a century ago, is one of the country's most distinguished newspapers. The "Constitution" came into its greatest fame in the early eighties, when Captain Evan P. Howell—the same Captain Howell who commanded a battery at the battle of Peachtree Creek, in the defense of Atlanta, and who later called, with his son, on General Sherman, as already recorded—became its editor, and Henry W. Grady its managing editor. ”

“ The urban population (i.e. the population in places of 2500 inhabitants and over) was 15.6% of the total in 1900, and the number of incorporated cities, towns and villages was 372. Of these only forty had a population exceeding 2000, and thirteen exceeding 5000. The largest city in 1900 was Atlanta, the capital since 1868 (Louisville, Jefferson county, was the capital in 1795–1804, and Milledgeville in 1804–1868) , with 89,872 inhabitants. Savannah ranked second with 54,244, and Augusta third with 39,441. ”

“ Atlanta has about 20,000 inhabitants. The water is pure, the air bracing, and the climate resembles that of Northern Italy. The Walton Springs are in the city, furnishing a strongly chalybeate water, much used, and with great success, as a tonic. The fall and spring months are peculiarly delightful, and the vicinity offers many pleasant excursions.
Communication by rail either to Chattanooga and East Tennessee, or south to Macon, etc., is convenient.{26}
5.—FROM CHARLESTON TO SAVANNAH.
The tourist has the choice of the railway via Coosawhatchie, or via Augusta, Georgia, or the steamers. ”

“ The lake is about 24 miles long and 10 broad; the mountain is an active volcano 12,160 feet high.
Atlan ́ta, a city in the United States, capital of Georgia, on an elevated ridge, 7 miles south-east of the Chattahoochee River. It is an important railway centre; carries on a large trade in grain, paper, cotton, flour, and especially tobacco, and possesses flour-mills, paper-mills, ironworks, &c. Here are Atlanta University for negro men and women, a theological college, a medical college, &c. Atlanta suffered severely during the Civil War, and a battle was fought there on 22nd July, 1864. ”

“ His pen built Atlanta, it aided in building up Georgia; it established expositions that were a credit to the State and a glory to her people; it accumulated by one editorial $85,000 for the erection of a Y. M. C. A. building; it collected the fund for the erection of the Confederate soldiers’ home, which will ever stand as a monument to his patriotism and fidelity. ”

“ As regards commerce and manufactures, Atlanta ranks first among the cities of Georgia. In 1907 its wholesale and retail trade was estimated at $100,000,000. The city is said to receive two-fifths of the total freight delivered in the state of Georgia. ”

“ This whole region, though called 'southern,' is in fact 'northern'—viz.: it is a wheat-growing country; has a climate in no sense tropical or southern, but was designed by nature for small farms and not for large plantations. In the region I have named North Georgia forms a most important part, and your city, Atlanta, is its natural centre or capital. ”

“ Some of the real colonels have been objecting to the paper kind, and the "Constitution" has bravely backed up the objection.
The liveliness of journalism in Georgia does not begin and end in Atlanta. The Savannah "Morning News" has an able editorial page, and there are many others in the State. Some of the small-town papers are, moreover, well worth reading for that kind of breeziness which we usually associate with the West rather than the South. ”

“ Virginia was merely the gateway to the Confederacy, but Georgia was very near the center of its vitality. This was shown by the fact that when Atlanta fell, and Sherman began his destructive march to the sea, it was known on all sides that the Confederate Government was doomed. This movement, strange to say, was hastened by the Confederate authorities. General Joseph E. Johnston, one of the greatest commanders of the war, was removed at a critical moment, when his well-disciplined army had reached Atlanta. ”

“ A famous railroad emigration agent called “Peg Leg” Williams, who promoted Negro emigration from Georgia to Mississippi and Texas a few years ago, was repeatedly prosecuted and finally driven out of business. In a letter which he wrote some time ago to the Atlanta Constitution he said:
I know of several counties not a hundred miles from Atlanta where it’s more than a man’s life is worth to go in to get Negroes to move to some other state. ”

“ There are many manufactories just outside the city limits.
History.—Atlanta owes its origin to the development of pioneer railroads of Georgia. In 1836 the Western & Atlantic, the first road built into North Georgia, was chartered, and the present site of Atlanta was chosen as its southern terminal, which it reached in 1843, and which was named “Terminus.” The Georgia and the Central of Georgia then projected branches to Terminus in order to connect with the Western & Atlantic, and completed them in 1845 and 1846. ”

“ The industrial work of Atlanta consists, first, in farm-work. The farm of sixty acres, which is the most beautiful spot in the State of Georgia, and under the superintendence of a Massachusetts farmer, speaks for itself. The young men learn, also, wood-work, draughting and forging ”

“ Of the 1900 population, 53.3% were whites and 46.7% were negroes, [5] the centre of the black population being a little south of the “fall line.” Here the negroes increased, from 1890 to 1900, faster than the whites in eighteen counties, but in northern Georgia, where the whites are in the majority, the negro population declined in twelve counties. Also the percentage of negro illiteracy is higher in northern Georgia than in other parts of the state, the percentage of negro male illiterates of voting age being 38.3% in Atlanta in 1900, and in Savannah only 30.7%. ”

“ It stands more than a thousand feet above the sea, in northern Georgia, where the Appalachian mountain176 range is tapering down toward the southern plains. Because Atlanta is so high it is cooler in summer than most southern cities, and is always free from the scourge of yellow fever and cholera. ”

“ Georgia: 1 (1,837) , one of the 13 original States of the American Union, lies to the S., fronting the Atlantic between Florida and S. Carolina; is divided into 136 counties, Atlanta being the capital and Savannah the chief port; it is well watered with rivers; is low and swampy for some miles inland, but it rises into plateaux in the interior, and the Appalachians and Blue Mountains intersect it in the NW.; excellent crops of wheat and fruit are grown among the hills, rice in the lowlands, while immense quantities of cotton are raised on the islands skirting the coast ”

“ Atlanta has an imposing array of educational institutions, extending from the public school system to the great polytechnic institute known as the Georgia Institute of Technology. There is a variety of technical schools, including law, medicine, dentistry, handicrafts, business colleges, industrial schools and divinity schools. ”

“ The belt [Pg 9] of country stretching from Augusta across the State to Columbus, having a width of from 30 to 60 miles, is pronounced a very healthy district. At Augusta the mean summer temperature is about 79°, the winter 47°. At Atlanta careful observations give the average of summer heat as 75°, and winter 45°. Diseases of the respiratory organs are rare among natives of northern and central Georgia. The interior is comparatively free from the dreaded epidemics cholera and yellow fever, but Savannah and the coast are periodically scourged by them. ”

“ A`thos, Mount, or Monte Santo (6) , a mountain 6780 ft. high at the southern extremity of the most northerly peninsula of Salonica, in Turkey, covered with monasteries, inhabited exclusively by monks of the Greek Church, and rich in curious manuscripts; the monks devote themselves to gardening, bee-culture, and other rural occupations, the more devout among them at one time celebrated for the edification they derived from the study of their own navels.
Atlanta (65) , the largest city in Georgia, U.S.; a large manufacturing and railway centre. ”

“ Railways.—Atlanta, Columbus, Macon, Albany, and Augusta are railway centres. In 1860 there were in Georgia 1,404 miles of completed railway; in 1878 there were 2,340 miles. The Atlantic and Gulf Railway crosses the State from Savannah to Bainbridge, in the extreme south-west, on the Flint river. It is 236 miles long, passing through Blackshear, Valdosta, and Thomasville (from which there is a branch line to Albany—58 miles—and Macon) , while from Dupont there is a junction with the Florida lines. ”

“ Pio Nono College at Macon is a recently established Catholic institution, chiefly founded by the efforts of the bishop of Savannah. The Atlanta University for the education of negroes was established by the now extinct Freedmen’s Bureau and various charitable societies of the Northern States. It receives an annual appropriation from the Georgia legislature of $8000. It accommodates 240 pupils. There are a number of institutions, in addition to those enumerated, that are entitled colleges, but come more properly within the designation of high schools. ”

“ During the campaign against Atlanta alone the regiment lost, in killed and wounded, fifty-eight out of one hundred and forty who were engaged; and when mustered out the ranks will be thin, the numbers few. Not many regiments have seen harder service than ours—none have borne themselves more nobly; and I cherish the thought that my little book may be useful to the historian of the war in Georgia and Tennessee, as the record of the doings of the noble Sixth Kentucky. ”

“ An Army post is always an attraction because of the parades and the music, and its disbursements add materially to a city’s income. Fort McPherson, four miles out on the Central of Georgia Railway and two car lines, is one of the best-constructed posts in the United States and much visited by citizens. ”