"Atlanta, Georgia - the Commercial Centre''

The picture displays part of a wood engraving drawn by Horace Bradley and published in ''Harper's Weekly" on February 12, 1887.

Historical Timeline - City of Atlanta

Seal of the City of Atlanta


before 1820s
1762	Standing Peachtree, Native American trading post first mentioned
1820
1821	Creek Indians cede land that is now Metro Atlanta
1822	Decatur founded
1830
1830	Whitehall Tavern built at today's West End
1836	Western and Atlantic Railroad approved
1839	John Thrasher builds settlement at terminus
1840
1842	Incorporated as Marthasville; Georgia Railroad arrives from Augusta
1846	Macon & Western RR connects Atlanta with port of Savannah
1847	Atlanta incorporated
1850 pop. 2,572
1850	Oakland Cemetery founded
1851	W&A RR connects Atlanta to The Midwest
1854	Atlanta & La Grange RR connects Atlanta towards the southwest; Atlanta becomes rail hub for entire South
1860 pop. 9,554
1861-1865	American Civil War
1864	Civil War Atlanta Campaign, burning of Atlanta
1865	Civil War ends; slaves freed; Atlanta University, 1st Atlanta black college, founded
1870 pop. 21,879
1871	Horse-drawn streetcars appear, enabling city expansion
1880 pop. 37,409
1880	Atlanta surpasses Savannah as Georgia's largest city
1881	International Cotton Exposition
1885	Georgia Tech founded
1886	Atlanta goes "dry"; Coca-Cola first sold; Henry Grady's "New South" speech in New York
1887	Piedmont Exposition; Inman Park, first garden suburb, founded; Coca-Cola invents the coupon
1889	First electric streetcars enable further expansion of city; State Capitol building opens
1890 pop. 65,533
1895	Cotton States Expo; Booker T. Washington gives "Atlanta Compromise" Speech
1900 pop. 89,872 - metro 419,375
1906	Atlanta Race Riot kills 27; Black businesses move to Sweet Auburn and west side
1910 pop. 154,839 - metro 522,442
1910	Restaurants segregated; other Jim Crow laws follow
1913	Leo Frank lynching; Georgia Tech starts "evening college", now Georgia State
1914	Coca-Cola president Asa Griggs Candler donates land for Emory University campus in Druid Hills
1917	Great Atlanta fire
1920 pop. 200,616 - metro 622,283
1923	Spring Street Viaduct opens, downtown rises above train tracks
1930 pop. 270,366 - metro 715,391
1936	William B. Hartsfield elected mayor; Techwood Homes built, first public housing in US
1939	Gone with the Wind premiere draws 300,000 to streets
1940s
1946	Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) founded
1949	Last streetcar line converted to trolleybus
1950 pop. 331,314 - metro 997,666
1950	Transit strike, Atlanta Transit Co. takes over transit from Georgia Railway and Power
1952	Buckhead annexed
1958	Racist terrorists bomb "The Temple", believing Jews support black Civil Rights
1959	Trolleybuses, buses, public library desegregated; Lenox Square mall opens Metro population hits 1 million
1960 pop. 487,455 - metro 1,312,474
1960	Civil Rights sit-ins at Rich's, lunch counters
1961	Ivan Allen, Jr. becomes mayor; Public schools begin token desegregation; Rich's desegregates restaurant; John Portman opens Merchandise Mart, kicking off transformation of downtown
1962	106 Atlanta art patrons die in Paris air crash
1963	Trolleybuses converted en masse to buses
1968	Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated
1969	Perimeter freeway opens
1970 pop. 496,973 - metro 1,763,626
1973	Maynard Jackson becomes first black mayor
1979	MARTA opens first rail rapid transit line; Child murders begin
1980 pop. 425,022 - metro 2,233,324
1980	CNN launches, Turner empire takes off
1982	Andrew Young becomes mayor
1988	Democratic Convention
1990 pop. 394,017 - metro 2,959,950
1992	Bank of America Plaza completed, tallest US building outside of NYC and Chicago
1996	Summer Olympics
2000 pop. 416,474 - metro 4,112,198
2005	Airport becomes world's busiest; BeltLine plan adopted, adding 40% to city's green space
2008	Delta becomes world's largest airline; Downtown tornadoes
2010 pop. 420,003 - metro (CSA) 5,729,304
2011	Atlanta first US city to demolish all public housing projects

This information is available thanks to Wikipedia's History of Atlanta, which we have permission to redistribute.