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Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell

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The Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, located along Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is operated by the Atlanta History Center. While living at the home, Mitchell wrote the bulk of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gone with the Wind. Since the home opened to the public on May 17, 1997, it has become a staple of the local community as an important literary center and event venue. 

Margaret Mitchell House and Museum

This walking tour starts at the Atlanta History Center's Margaret Mitchell House and winds its way north through Midtown with stops at several landmarks and numerous museums. 

Atlanta Midtown and Museums Walking Tour

Starting at the "Castle on Peachtree" this driving tour heads south along Peachtree Street into Downtown Atlanta. The tour stops at 20 Atlanta landmarks including museums, monuments, and historic buildings.

Peachtree Castle to Peachtree Street Driving Tour

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Architecture and Design Rhodes Hall is a Victorian Romanesque Revival 9,000-square-foot house inspired by the Rhineland castles that Rhodes admired on a trip to Europe. Architect Willis F. Denny designed the unique home with Stone Mountain granite, incorporating medieval Romanesque, Victorian, and Arts and Crafts designs. After two years of construction, the house was completed in 1904. It cost nearly $50,000 and was one of the most grand of the mansions overlooking Peachtree Street. The Rhodes family referred to their house as "Le Rève" ("The Dream").&nbsp;
Rhodes Hall is unparalleled, architecturally, in Georgia. Few residential structures were built in the Romanesque Revival style. By the time Rhodes wanted this home, the style was already deemed unfashionable. The architect, Willis F. Denny, adapted the medieval Romanesque style in the design of a 20th-century home. The mansion was an instant success in the Atlanta social scene. One writer in an Atlanta paper even said that “in the war of wealth and opulence waged along Peachtree Street at the time, it can probably be said that Amos Rhodes’ fortress won hands down.”&nbsp;Its "medieval" appearance reflects the Southern fascination with the Middle Ages during the 19th and early 20th century. Inspired by popular works such as Walter Scott's Ivanhoe&nbsp;(1820), and by cultural ties to England and Scotland, many members of the white Southern elite romanticized the medieval past and drew inspiration from medieval knights, chivalry, and courtly life.Confederate Symbolism and Medieval Nostalgia Rhodes Hall features a prominent series of stained and painted glass windows, produced by the renowned von Gerichten Art Glass Company, depicting moments in the history of the Confederacy. For example, the panels show Jefferson Davis's election as president of the Confederate States of America, alongside portraits of other Confederate leaders (such as Robert E. Lee) and images from famous battles. As historian Richard Utz writes, these visually striking stained glass panels form "a church-like shrine to the 'Lost Cause,'" looking wistfully back to the antebellum South. The medieval-inspired aesthetics of the castle and its decor further amplifies the nostalgia, highlighting the connection between Southern gentlemen and heroic medieval knights and aristocrats. Historic Preservation of the House 
After the deaths of Mrs. and Mr. Rhodes in 1927 and 1928, their two children deeded the house to the State of Georgia. The deed had a restriction that the property could only be used for "historic purposes." In 1930, the building opened as the home of the State Archives and functioned as such until 1965, when a more modern facility was opened elsewhere. Rhodes Hall continued to serve as the Peachtree Branch of the Archives.
In 1983, The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation signed a long-term lease for Rhodes Hall with the State of Georgia. Serving as headquarters for The Georgia Trust, Rhodes Hall has undergone significant restoration.
Rhodes Hall has house tours on Saturdays (from 10 - 2, the last tour starts at 1). Group tours can be given on other days with advance arrangement. Rhodes Hall is also available for rentals including weddings, receptions, corporate events, cocktail gatherings, and birthday parties.

Rhodes Memorial Hall, commonly known as Rhodes Hall or the Castle on Peachtree, is a historic house located in Atlanta, Georgia. It was built as the home of Amos Giles Rhodes, founder of Atlanta-based Rhodes Furniture. The Romanesque Revival house occupies a prominent location on Peachtree Street, the main street of Atlanta, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is open to the public and has been the home of The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation since 1983.

Rhodes Hall: The Castle on Peachtree

The monument stands 55 feet above Pershing Point in Midtown. The five columnns honor the five continents that sent athletes to the 1996 Summer Olympics and the statue is dedicated to the all of the athletes who participated in the games. The statue was a gift from the Prince of Wales with help from local citizens who agreed to raise one-third of the cost of the statue. When Princess Diana was killed in 1997, an estimated 20,000 mourners gathered at the statue. Since that time, the statue has become the symbol of the Midtown neighborhood and the center of celebrations as well as vigils and remembrances. 

Prince Charles Monument-World Athletes Monument 

The High Museum was founded as the Atlanta Art Association but it did not have its first physical location until 1926, when Mrs. Joseph High donated her family home to the museum. Another building was constructed next to it in 1955 to increase its size. The current building was constructed in 1968, then called the Atlanta Memorial Arts Center. It was named as such to honor the people, many of whom were from Atlanta, who died in a plane crash at the Orly Airport in Paris on June 3rd 1962. They were departing from a museum-sponsored trip to Europe, which included a visit to Paris and the Louvre. The plane crashed on take-off. Only two flight attendants survived the crash; the rest of the crew and all passengers were killed, many of whom were prominent Atlanta citizens. As a gesture of sympathy, the Louvre donated the Rodin sculpture, "The Shade," to the museum in the fall of that year.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

The High Museum was established in 1905 and is the leading art museum in the Southeast. It houses over 15,000 works of art that are on permanent display and has featured a variety of artwork on loan from world-class museums such as the Louvre. In 2010, the museum became one of the 100 most-visited art museums in the world after 509,000 individuals passed through its doors that year. Its collection is comprised of American and decorative art, African art, European paintings, African American art, modern and contemporary art, photography, folk art, and self-taught art. Special attention is also paid to works created by Southern artists. Artists represented at the High include Chuck Close, Dorothy Lange, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Claude Monet, Tommaso del Mazza, John Copley, and Walker Evans. The collection also includes a large sculpture called "The Shade" created by Auguste Rodin, which stands outside on the museum grounds. The High's photography collection is large, featuring 6,000 prints. At the core is one of the best Civil Rights era photography holdings in the country.

High Museum of Art

Also known as the "Old Lady of Peachtree", the Wimbish House was built for William Wimbish and his family in 1906. They lived there until 1919 when the Women's Club bought it. Its design was inspired by&nbsp;their French friend's home and as such resembles a French chateau. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It is available to rent for a variety of functions including weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Located in the historic Wimbish House, the Atlanta Women's Club has been a vital, driving force in the city's social, cultural and economic development. It was founded in 1895 after a meeting of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, which was held at the Cotton States Exposition in Piedmont Park. The club's members have participated in numerous philanthropic and community-related activities in educational, arts, and civic areas. During its first two decades, the club played an important role in establishing the airport (now the busiest in the world), a mobile library, the first art gallery (in the Wimbish House), the city's kindergartens (by advocating they be incorporated into the public school system), Tallulah Falls High School, and many others. The club continues to be a vibrant and vocal force in the city.

Atlanta Women's Club (Wimbish House)

After touring the museum, experience the rest of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Visitors Center, take a look inside cash-processing operations, and get a glimpse into the bank's automated vault.&nbsp;

The Atlanta Monetary Museum, housed in the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, features exhibits that highlight the role of money in world history and document the history of banking in the United States. 

Atlanta Monetary Museum and Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

The apartment building built in 1923 that occupies part of the 800 block of Peachtree Street at the corner of 6th Street was originally called 696 Peachtree Street Apartments. The five-story structure is composed of reinforced concrete and steel with red brick and limestone exterior details in a Georgian Revival style. This is one of the last structures co-designed by the architect Neel Reid before his death in 1926. His architectural firm began in 1909 and became leaders in the Georgia School of Classicists. Hentz, Reid and Adler specialized in single-family residential structures. 696 Peachtree Street Apartments was considered a "luxury" apartment complex in the 1920s. It is one of only a few of its type built in Atlanta and retains its Georgian decoration and use as apartments. The early twentieth-century "garden-style" apartment complex was much more common in the city than this tall structure. Peachtree Street was the commercial corridor of Atlanta; the street also was lined with grand Victorian homes on large lots for the upper-middle class in the 1870's and 1880's. As affluent residents began to move to new suburbs by the turn of the twentieth century with the availability of streetcar lines and automobiles, room became available in the city for apartment complexes. High-rise apartment buildings rose in popularity with the advent of the electric elevator in the late nineteenth century. With corporate headquarters and new hotels being built in the city, the importance of modern apartment offerings to attract new residents was acknowledged. A 1924 article in City Builder lauded the beauty, size, and permanence of construction of new apartment buildings, many of which were built of fireproof construction. The owner sponsored the NRHP nomination of the apartment building which was written by Georgia State University graduate students. the building now houses 40 residential condominium units.

Constructed in 1923, this apartment building known by some as the Peachtree Manor Hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in May of 2013. The five-story structure is significant in architecture as an excellent example of an early 1920s Georgian Revival style apartment building. It retains its Georgian decorative details and its original function as individual apartments. It was designed by one of the most important Atlanta architectural firms in that era, Hentz, Reid and Adler. The building also is important in understanding changing residential patterns in Atlanta in the early twentieth century, as occupants of the city's grand Victorian homes moved to new streetcar and automobile suburbs, leaving room for apartment dwellers on redeveloped tracts. 

696 Peachtree Street Apartments

Additional Information During the 1970s, several elements collided to bring about the Fox’s decline – white flight, the rise of suburban multiplex theaters, and changes in how films were distributed. In 1974, Southern Bell, the regional arm of AT&amp;T, approached the owners of the theater with an offer to buy and with the intent of tearing it down and building a new headquarters on the site. A group was formed to save the theater and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in May 1974.Rapper Killer Mike of Run the Jewels introduced Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, at a campaign rally at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, GA on November 23, 2015. Atlanta, GA is Killer Mike’s home town, where he is known as a powerful activist figure in both music and politics. He gave a captivating speech to a boisterous crowd and endorsed Bernie Sanders for president at the Atlanta rally. The nearly six minute speech quickly went viral, and it has racked up over 242,000 views on the Bernie Sanders YouTube channel as of May 2021. Killer Mike remains a prominent voice in the hip-hop community and is active in politics. He previously ran as a write-in candidate for the GA state house, performed during the Occupy Atlanta movement, and was named one of the city’s most powerful people in Atlanta magazine in November 2015. Killer Mike is also known for running a barbershop, the Swag Shop, with his wife, and he also filmed a six-part interview series with Bernie Sanders at his barbershop, “Talking Shop with Bernie Sanders,” which was shot in November 2015.

The historic Fox Theater, located in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, opened in 1929. This historic movie theater was originally intended to be part of a Shriners Temple before it became part of the Fox theater chain. The facility seats 4,678 individuals and is used to host a variety of events including the Atlanta Ballet and a number of Broadway shows. 

Fox Theater

Rufus M. Rose was born in 1836 in Connecticut and made his way to New York City where he entered the drug business on Long Island. He then studied medicine and traveled to&nbsp;Hawkinsville in the 1850s to work in his uncle's drugstore. He served in the Confederate Army and as a doctor during the Civil War. He moved to Atlanta after the war in 1867 and it was at this point he founded&nbsp;R.M. Rose Company, which soon became&nbsp;famous for producing an excellent quality whiskey. The company was forced to move to Tennessee in 1907 when Georgia became a dry state. Rose passed away in 1910. The family remained in the house until 1921, after which it became a private residence, rooming house, office space for the Fulton County Relief Administration, once more a private residence, then becoming a museum in 1945 called Atlanta Museum. The museum housed the strange collection of collector&nbsp;James H. Elliott, Sr. On display were many items of note including a Japanese Zero plane and furniture belonging to Margaret Mitchell, the author of&nbsp;Gone With the Wind. The museum closed in 1998 and the house became the headquarters of the Atlanta Preservation Center from 1999-2001. It has remained vacant ever since, though is now being renovated.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Rufus M. Rose House is the last Victorian-era home remaining on Peachtree Street. It was built by Rufus M. Rose, a prominent figure in Atlanta's history in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Rose was a trained physician and founder of the distillery, R.M. Rose Co. He created and patented the Four Roses whiskey, which remains a popular brand today. The house has suffered from neglect and vandalism in recent years but as of 2017 it is currently being renovated by Atlanta native Liliana Bakhtiari, the daughter of the owner, Gholam Bakhtiari. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Rufus M. Rose House

Physician and priest Charles Quintard assembled a congregation within Atlanta in 1863--in the midst of the Civil War and just prior to the destructive Battle of Atlanta. This group officially organized St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Easter Sunday in 1864 and worked to both build and rebuild their congregation and city in the following years. This late English Gothic church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was completed in 1906. The church is best known for its stained glass, which was created by several different studios and installed over the first six decades of the new building's tenure as both the home of this historic congregation and one-time one-time Cathedral of the Diocese. 

St. Luke's Episcopal Church

The 12-story skyscraper called the Medical Arts Building has towered over Peachtree Street since 1927. Four local doctors saw the need for state-of-the-art medical offices: Doctors Cliff Sauls, Grady E. Clay, James E. Paulin and Malvern D. Huff. Architect G. Lloyd Preacher's used clean lines, decorative cornice and pilasters in this neoclassical structure. The steel frame building is encased in concrete with an exterior base clad with limestone on the first two floors, buff brick on floors three to ten, and a capital of buff brick on the upper two stories topped with a pressed-metal cornice. In its heyday the Medical Arts Building was a busy place with a cafeteria, telegraph office and drugstore. The interior corridors were marble-floored interior; a grand staircase with a decorative metal railing and elevator lobbies gave the building a distinctive feel. Since the mid-1990's the building has been vacant. A record producer planned to convert the building into a boutique hotel years ago but the project didn't happen. Broken windows and graffiti marked the outside of the structure. Advertising banners for the Holiday Inn brands were hung from the building and did little to improve the view. Several floors of the building burned in a fire in 2005. Since the building is within walking distance of both parts of downtown and Midtown Atlanta and includes over 250 parking spaces, maybe the next plan will be seen through. In fact, plans were filed with the city in early 2019 with hopes to convert the building to a 160-room hotel with 2,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space on the ground floor. The Atlanta design firm Cooper Cary is involved. The Medical Arts Building's owner, GBX Group, donated the facade of the building to Easements Atlanta in 2017 in exchange for federal redevelopment tax credits; this protects the historic exterior during rehabbing. The renovation is estimated to cost $40 million and an investment firm, Kim King Associates, has joined the project. The building is featured in a ghost tour of Atlanta and a spirit named Sally is said to lurk outside the entrance, telling tales of medical experiments held in the building. Hey, would a K2 meter lie?? The building was listed in the National Register late in 2016. The building is one of the first in Atlanta with a covered parking garage, foreshadowing the importance of the automobile to Atlanta. It is significant for its association with the architect, Preacher, and as a surviving example of the expansion of Atlanta's downtown in the first decades of the twentieth century.

The Medical Arts Building is a 12-story structure designed by the well-known architect G. Lloyd Preacher and built in 1927. Unlike the Carnegie Building in the heart of downtown (another 12-story office building designed by Preacher a few years earlier) the Medical Arts Building is vacant. The building was utilized prior to the construction of the multi-lane Downtown Connector just feet away, an urban renewal project that catered to commuters at the cost of many historic buildings and displaced communities. Road patterns got disrupted and the Medical Arts Building was abandoned in the 1990's. The building has gone through multiple changes in ownership since then and almost got rehabbed into a hotel. Plans are in the works once again to convert the building to a hotel; the exterior is protected by an easement on the NRHP-listed building.

The Medical Arts Building

The first Catholic church in Atlanta was founded in 1869, what is now the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It became the "mother" church for other parishes including Sacred Heart. Founded in 1880, Sacred Heart was its first "daughter" church and initially called Saints Peter and Paul. The Fathers of the Society of Mary (known as Marist fathers) arrived in the late 1890s and soon started the process of building the current church, as they found Saints Peter and Paul too small and inadequate for the growing Catholic community. They renamed the parish Sacred Heart Church. The Marist Fathers eventually transferred management of the church to the archdiocese in the 1960s. Upon being designated a minor basilica in 2010, the name was changed to its current one.

Designed in the French Romanesque style by architect W.T. Downing, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been an important center for Catholic religious, educational and cultural life since its inception in 1898. It is a striking red-brick building, featuring arched windows and doorways, stained glass windows, and two towers that reach a height of 137 feet. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The club was founded and chartered in 1883 by 62 of its original members. As such, it is one of the oldest gentleman's clubs in the South. Its members first met in a mansion that has since been demolished. A few presidents, including Howard Taft, have visited the club.&nbsp;

Though dwarfed by adjacent modern high-rise buildings, the Capital City Club building still holds its own, thanks to its beautiful Georgian Revival architecture. It was built in 1911 to be the permanent for home for the club, whose members were the city's professional and business elite. It was and continues to be a place where members could gather to social and hold various events. The club also operates two other branches, one of which is a country club complete with a golf course. The downtown building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It is available to rent for weddings and other events.

Capital City Club

The Carnegie Building was originally called the Wynne-Claughton Building when it was built in 1925 in downtown Atlanta. The twelve-story structure next became known as the Mortgage Guaranty Building from 1929 to 1962. The Carnegie Building name began in 1963 and ended in 1989. The building is a combination of elements of the Beaux-Arts Style with its applied limestone decoration and features of the late Commercial style of architecture. The building's curved corners fit the triangular lot. The Carnegie Library once stood across the street.Morgan T. Wynne, born in 1900, partnered with John Crowell to form an insurance agency; they partnered with Edward Napoleon Claughton, born in 1892, a financial consultant, in 1924. The Wynne-Claughton Realty Sales Corporation was located in a building on Ivy Street. The skyscraper was built for the company from 1924 to 1925 at the location of the former Ewell Hotel. The architect was G. Lloyd Preacher (1882 - 1972), who is well-known for designing the city's neo-Gothic City Hall in 1930 and another Atlanta office building, the Medical Arts Building, in 1927. Preacher moved from Augusta, Georgia, to Atlanta around 1922; he moved his architecture offices into the new Wynne-Claughton Building.The building housed the offices of a wide range of companies and organizations in the 1920s, from the Oakland Motor Car Company to the state offices of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The building has also been home to the Atlanta Convention &amp; Visitors Bureau.The building's exterior was designated a landmark by the City of Atlanta in 1990. Thanks to the actions of preservationists and developers, the building is one of only a handful of neighboring historic structures within a city dominated by modern construction. The building is now home to the 150-room Courtyard Atlanta Downtown with a restaurant on the ground floor. The building is significant not only for its age and architecture but also for its association with influential businesses and organizations.

Atlanta's Carnegie Building is a twelve-story structure that was constructed from 1924 to 1925. The wedge-shaped building was originally known as the Wynne-Claughton Building and is composed of reinforced concrete with a brick veneer and limestone detailing. The Carnegie Library once stood across the street from this building. In 2012, the Carnegie Building was added to the National Register. The building is one of only a handful of early twentieth-century buildings in this section of Atlanta, such as the Winecoff Hotel which was completed in 1913. The building now serves as the home of the Courtyard Atlanta Downtown hotel.

Carnegie Building (Wynne-Claughton Building)

Eerily similar to the audacity of those who built the &nbsp;"unsinkable Titanic," the Winecoff was constructed one year after the Titanic sunk, yet its builders boldly claimed the hotel was fireproof. Just a the Titanic was ill-prepared for a maritime disaster, the hotel did not have fire escapes, a sprinkler system, fire doors, or&nbsp;an alarm system. Worse, the only stairway hotel was wrapped around the elevator in the center of the building, which proved unusable during the fire. Wallpaper-lined walls allowed the fire to spread rapidly and made the hallways nearly impossible to navigate.1&nbsp; All told, the 119 people that died, albeit in 1946, can attribute their deaths to the same audacity that accounted for many of the deaths associated with the Titanic that was built around the same time. In addition to the 119, another 90 were injured; roughly 209 of the 280 guests were injured or killed.2 Numerous people attempted to escape by jumping to nearby buildings, fashioning rope ladders out of bed sheets, or just jumping with hopes of landing safely (most died on impact). &nbsp;The inability for people to escape and the subsequent horrific deaths that resulted inspired President Truman to convene a commission intent on creating tougher standards for hotels regarding fire prevention and fire escapability measures.3 The origin of the fire has never been discovered. But, its legacy helped secure safer hotel fire-safety forever thereafter. Much of that resulting from a famous Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Arnold Hardy, an amateur photographer who famously had only one flash bulb remaining and caught, sadly, a women falling to her death. The Associated Press picked up the photo and it was then seen by the entire nation. It is one of many examples of how photojournalism highly affected culture from the 1930s to 1970s, when magazines such as Life Magazine grew to be very popular.&nbsp;

At fifteen stories high, the Winecoff Hotel was considered one of the first skyscrapers in Atlanta in 1913. It also claimed to be a fire proof building. However, on  December 7, 1946 a large fire claimed the lives of 119 guests and staff. The tragedy remains the deadliest hotel fire in United States history. The hotel reopened in 1951 as the Peachtree Hotel along with numerous modifications and added safety features. The hotel is now the Ellis Hotel. 

Ellis Hotel and the Winecoff Hotel Fire of 1946

The building is significant for its architecture, as it was meant to be a work of art in its own right and a monument to one man, Asa Candler, who spared no expense. To this end, the building's exterior&nbsp;features elaborate detailing and is adorned with numerous sculptures. Inside, the floor plans were designed for various professions including doctors, surgeons, dentists, and bankers. Six elevators, duplicate air conditioning and electrical systems were installed (to serve as backups), and there was even a barbershop.&nbsp;&nbsp; The Candler Building served as the headquarters of Atlanta's Central Bank and Trust Corporation, a bank founded by Candler in 1906, until 1922 when it was absorbed by&nbsp;Citizens &amp; Southern National Bank.&nbsp;

The Candler Building is a seventeen-story structure commissioned by Coca-Cola founder and executive, Asa Griggs Candler, and was completed in 1906. The building remained the tallest structure in the city until 1954. "Candler Investment Co. 1904 Geo. E. Murphy Architect" is inscribed on the building's cornerstone and the structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building continues to serve as office space.

The Candler Building

A.G. Rhodes and J.J Haverty, two prominent Atlanta furniture retailers and investors, developed the building that stood as Atlanta's tallest skyscraper during the middle part of the twentieth century. The Rhodes-Haverty Building represents a transition in skyscraper development in Atlanta from the Beaux-Arts eclecticism to modern forms that prevailed by the mid-twentieth century.  Amos G. Rhodes (1850 - 1928) moved to Atlanta in 1875 from Kentucky after the Civil War, having worked in his home state as a farmer and as then as a laborer for the L &amp; N Railroad in Atlanta. Rhodes built his fortune by opening a series of furniture stores. He opened the first store in 1879 and then eventually operated more than twenty-two stores throughout the Southeast. James Joseph Haverty (1858 - 1939) was born in Atlanta in 1858. By 1885, Haverty organized the successful furniture retail outlet, J.J. Haverty and Company. Both men also participated in numerous church, community, government, and philanthropic endeavors. Haverty and Rhodes merged their operations in 1889, forming the Rhodes-Haverty Furniture Company. In 1891, J.J. Haverty and the company headquarters moved westward to St. Louis, Missouri, for three years where the company expanded and built new showrooms. J.J Haverty returned in 1894 and continued to open more stores. Ten years later, the duo opened a grand flagship store in Atlanta. In 1908, the two dissolved their furniture-business partnership and divided the stores. Nevertheless, the two continued to work as investors as part of the Rhodes-Haverty Investment Company leading to the naming of this Atlanta skyscraper. Planning for the Rhodes-Haverty Building began many years before actual construction. The Rhodes-Haverty Investment Company petitioned the mayor and General Council of Atlanta in 1924 to clearly fix the location of the lot bordered by Peachtree Street, James Street (now Williams Street), and Forsyth Street. With the lot defined, loans were able to be obtained to construct a modern, fireproof office building. Construction began in 1928 but by that time A.G. Rhodes had passed away. The building opened in October 1929, just as the Great Depression took hold over much of the nation. Atlanta's airport, Candler Field, opened in 1930 as the nation's third-largest transportation center behind New York and Chicago. The Depression stalled growth and construction of new projects, but it did not reverse the city's growth and Atlanta remained the home of the largest financial institution south of Philadelphia as Robert W. Woodruff brought about a three-bank merger to create the First National Bank. The Rhodes-Haverty Building stands twenty-one-stories tall making it the tallest skyscraper in Atlanta from 1929 through 1954. The building possesses a steel frame with an exterior comprised of buff-colored brick, granite base, and a geometrical, Terra Cotta trim on its upper floors. The Rhodes-Haverty firm owned the building until 1946 when they sold it Georgia Properties Company. The building changed hands a few times over the next decades and is now home to Marriott's Residence Inn.

This twenty-one-story skyscraper was completed in 1929 and stood as Atlanta's tallest building until 1954. The building was designed by real estate investors J.J. Haverty and A.G. Rhodes who made their fortunes in the furniture business and had previously formed a retail partnership. The building was financed by the Rhodes-Haverty Investment Company and was completed in the same month as the stock market crash of 1929. The Depression stalled but did not reverse the city's growth and the building has been home to numerous tenants over the past century and now serves as the home of Marriott's Residence Inn.  

Rhodes–Haverty Building, Atlanta (Marriott Residence Inn)

The English-American Building, also known as the Georgia Savings Bank Building and Flatiron Building, stood as Atlanta's second-ever skyscraper. The first skyscraper in the city was built by the Equitable Trust Company and was later demolished, leaving the English-American as the oldest remaining skyscraper in Atlanta. The English-American name comes from its original tenant, the English-American Loan &amp; Trust Building, whose officers included Rufus B. Bullock, who once served as a Georgia governor during Reconstruction. The state forced him out in 1876 for trying to enforce political rights and protection for African Americans. The English-American Loan and Trust Company built the skyscraper. Bradford Gilbert of New York City, a well-known and lauded nineteenth-century architect, designed the flatiron skyscraper in 1897. Eight years earlier, he designed New York City's first steel frame building, the Tower Building. By 1895, Gilbert maintained an office in Atlanta while acting as the supervising architect of the Cotton States and International Exposition. Also, while the New York City Flatiron building -- designed by the famed D.H. Burnham &amp; Company, enjoys considerable notoriety, the English-American flatiron-designed skyscraper emerged nearly four years before its New York City counterpart. Rufus B. Bullock served as president of the English-American Loan &amp; Trust Company, which points to the second chapter of his life in Atlanta, one for which he enjoyed success in the private business sector. The first chapter for Bullock, a northern-born businessman who had cooperated with the Confederacy, involved his stint as a Republican Governor (1868 - 71) during the Reconstruction, one that ended with his removal after enjoying the reputation as the "most hated man in the state." He ostensibly attempted to provide African-Americans with an abundance of rights; the Ku Klux Klan led a movement to force him out of office. But, he did recover well and not only worked for the trust company but served as president of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and master of ceremonies at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895. The English-American Building name lasted until 1910 when the building became known as the Empire Life Building. The name changed again in 1916 when the structure was known as the Flatiron Building. In 1920, the Georgia Savings Bank and Trust Company purchased the building and remained its owner for nearly half of a decade, and then it changed hands again, which has been its ultimate story over time. Today, the building is known as Flatiron City and is the home to numerous businesses -- many of which are associated with technology. Thus, by looking at the history of Atlanta's flatiron building, one can view several chapters of the city's history, from Reconstruction to the 21st Century.

Completed in 1897, Atlanta's Flatiron Building was designed by New York architect Bradford Gilbert. Gilbert was a former student of renowned architect Daniel Burnham, who designed New York's Flat Iron Building, which shared the unique wedge-shaped design and was constructed five years later. Atlanta's Flatiron Building was the second skyscraper built in Atlanta and stands as the oldest standing steel-framed skyscraper in the city.  Rufus Brown Bullock was one of the principal figures involved in the English-American Trust & Loan Company and had previously served as Georgia governor during the Reconstruction Era and sought better economic and political rights for African Americans. The KKK and other groups helped push him out of the state because he supported Reconstruction, but he returned years later and became a successful Atlanta businessman. 

The Flatiron Building (English-American Building) 

<div>An iconic landmark located in the heart of downtown at &nbsp;Five-Points, the famed intersection of Edgewood Avenue, Decatur, and Peachtree Streets. The site of the Olympia building dates back to the founding of &nbsp;Atlanta. It was the location of the city's first post office and general store built and operated by Atlanta pioneer and first postmaster George Washington Collier in the mid-1840s. Collier built several buildings on the site. During the 1920s, the Collier Building was a popular shopping destination in Five-Points. However, the rise of the automobile witnessed a decline of the pedestrian-oriented downtown.&nbsp; </div><div> </div><div>During the depression era, Frank Hawkins, founder of the Third National Bank, invested in the old Collier Building. The new building was named Olympia after Hawkins investments in Olympia Beach, Florida. The architectural firm of Ivey and Crook, two graduates of Georgia Tech, designed the two-story Art Deco structure in the modern style. The building reflects a transition from the revival style to the international style with a facade of minimal detailing. The Olympia building was completed in 1936.</div><div> </div><div>The Woodruff Foundation gifted the Olympia Building to the State for the Centennial Olympic in 1996. Recently, it began a major restoration to preserve the historic 1936 facade in 2015. The Olympia Building will reopen as a vintage Walgreens in 2016.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div>

Built by famous Atlanta architects Ivey and Crook in the midst of the Great Depression, this pie-shaped building is best known for its iconic Coca-Cola sign. The building was donated to the city of Atlanta to help support their effort in bringing the Olympics to Atlanta in 1996. It went under restoration after many years listed as an endangered historic landmark and reopened in 2016. The building now stands where Atlanta’s first post office and general store once stood.

Olympia Building

The first version of what became Coca-Cola was sold at Jacobs' Pharmacy in 1886. The drink was invented by John Pemberton, a former Confederate officer. After being wounded in battle, he became addicted to the painkiller morphine. In attempting to cure his addiction, he experimented with other narcotics, including cocaine, at a time when this was not a controlled substance. While cocaine may or may not have been included in the version of the cola sold here, kola nuts were a core ingredient, along with sugar and the significant amounts of caffeine the kola nuts contained. Today, kola nuts are not directly used in the production of the drink, but the caffeine and the sugar still post health problems if consumed in large quantities. The company also now offers versions of the cola without sugar and caffeine.Joseph Jacobs, the owner of Jacobs' Pharmacy, studied under Dr. Crawford W. Long, the doctor who discovered Ether's Value in surgery. Jacobs received a degree from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1879. Despite the historical significance, the original building was demolished many years ago. The Coca-Cola company requested permission to erect this marker, to designate the importance of the location's history in 2016. Asa G. Candler signed on as an investor in one-third of the Coca-Cola brand in 1887 and later persuaded Pemberton to sell the formula for $2300. Candler sold the brand to a group of investors in 1919, a date that could be considered the start of the modern Coca-Cola company.

Jacobs' Pharmacy was the first establishment to serve the now famous beverage, Coca-Cola, on May 8, 1886. Jacobs' acquired the building in 1884 and sold his interest in Coca-Cola to Asa Candler, who later took control of the company from the drink's inventor, John Pemberton. The building has long since been demolished, but this historical marker, installed in 2016, represents the history of the pharmacy and its now-famous beverage. 

Peachtree Castle to Peachtree Street Driving Tour

Margaret Mitchell House and Museum

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information