September 18, 1895
On this day in 1895, President Grover Cleveland threw an electric switch at his Massachusetts home and officially opened the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition. Civic leaders wanted to promote Georgia’s economic development and showcase Atlanta as the resurgent heart of the New South. 800,000 people visited the 6,000 exhibits. They saw the Liberty […]
October 8, 1895
It doesn't get around much anymore, but the Liberty Bell came to Atlanta on this date in 1895 for the Cotton States Exposition. It almost didn't. The famously–cracked 2,000 pound pealer left Philadelphia on seven trips between 1885 and 1915. Each time it came home with more cracks. It turned out the men hired to […]
September 11, 1894
An ambulance driver, a lawyer and the first woman elected to Congress from Georgia* — all stops along the way for Helen Douglas Mankin. Mankin was the daughter of two lawyers. She drove an ambulance in France during World War I, and then graduated from Atlanta Law School, which her father helped found. She and […]
October 21, 1891
His name became a synonym for the New South. Henry Grady was born in 1850 in Athens. After graduating from the University of Georgia, Grady published an editorial in 1874 in the Atlanta Daily Herald entitled “The New South.” It caught the eye of the owners of the Atlanta Constitution and they offered him part […]
March 1, 1890
When you help guide a city through a depression and then, later, guide it through the civil rights era…when you are responsible for Atlanta’s becoming the aviation capital that it is…then it’s fair to say you’ve had an impact. William Hartsfield was mayor of Atlanta longer than any other person. He was born in Atlanta […]
September 24, 1889
Its beautiful campus has hosted more than 20 movies and TV shows. It opened in 1889 as the Decatur Female Seminary. As Agnes Scott College, it's become a preeminent institution of women's higher education. In 1888, Frank Gaines became pastor of the Decatur Presbyterian Church. With church support, he founded the seminary the next year […]
September 3, 1888
Viruses and bacteria are two very different things. We know that now thanks to a pioneering scientist born in Jonesboro. Known as the father of modern virology, Thomas Milton Rivers also had a hand in the development of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine. Rivers graduated from Emory College and went on to Johns Hopkins Medical School. […]
October 13, 1885
A Ramblin’ Wreck is more than just a snappy nickname for Georgia Tech. It speaks to the very reason the school was created in the first place. To help bring the Industrial Revolution to Georgia, the Georgia School of Technology began with $65,000 in state funding and 84 students. At first, the school was narrowly […]
November 13, 1884
It was built to look like the United States Capitol and is now a national historic landmark. Georgia’s capital moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868 but without any buildings to house it, so state government had two temporary quarters—the old Atlanta City Hall and the Kimball Opera House. In 1883, the state legislature authorized […]
February 15, 1877
General James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia, but his grave had been lost in England until it was found by the man who also re-founded Oglethorpe University. Thornwell Jacobs was born in South Carolina in 1877. His grandfather served on the faculty of the original Oglethorpe, founded in 1835 and out of business since […]