- State: Georgia
- Counties: Fulton, DeKalb
- Terminus: 1837
- Marthasville: 1843
- City of Atlanta: 1847
ATLANTA'S early history resounds with the ring of iron spikes driven against shining new rails, the clang of locomotive bells and the hoarse voices of whistles, the clattering of wagons over rutted roads, the bawling of teamsters and laborers, and the carousing of gamblers, with an occasional shot sharpening the cacophony. Only a few miles removed from cultured plantation life, this frontier town was settled around a railroad terminus that was conceived in economic stress.
Atlanta's first cemetery was a small plot at the corner of Peachtree and Baker Streets. As early as October of 1849, however, the little town of Atlanta had grown to such an extent that it became necessary to find a cemetery site farther removed from town and consolidate the public and private burial plots. Several "graveyard committees" were appointed by the city council to find a suitable location, and on June 6, 1850, six acres of wooded land were purchased in what is now the southwest corner of the cemetery. Continue.
Thomas A. Dorsey learned his religion from his Baptist minister father and piano from his music teacher mother in Villa Rica, Georgia, where he was born July 1, 1899. He came under the influence of local blues pianist when they moved to Atlanta in 1910.
He began his musical career known as Georgia Tom, playing barrelhouse piano in one of Al Capone’s Chicago speakeasies and leading Ma Rainey’s Jazz band. He hooked up with slide guitarist Hudson Tampa Red Whittaker with whom he recorded the best selling blues hit, "Tight Like That," in 1928 and wrote more than 460 Rhythm and Blues and Jazz songs. Continue.
Gone With The Wind. One of the greatest celebrations to be held here in the twentieth century was the festival attending the premiere of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's vivid picturization of the book in December 1939. Hundreds of visitors streamed up and down Peachtree Street, a few of them searching, in all seriousness, for the site of "Aunt Pittypat's" house. Continue.
