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Archive Atlanta A weekly history podcast sharing stories about the people, places and events that shaped the city of Atlanta.

11/04/2025

Built in 1898, this house on Georgia Avenue was first home to CL Glessner and his family. From the 1920s through 1950s, it was home to the Camerons. Charles Cameron was a rug dealer and owned The Rug Shop on Whitehall Street.

08/04/2025

In 1906, Oscar Davis took a permit to build a row of houses on Estoria Street, this being one. Cabbagetown homes typically had a different renter every year and so they’re hard to find out one good story about a specific person or family, but I try to imagine all the different lives that lived in these walls over the last 119 years.

07/04/2025

In 1909, Mrs. Lettie Pate Whitehead donated $5,000 for Georgia Tech to build a campus hospital, named for her late husband, Joseph Brown Whitehead. She was inspired after a tour where she saw so many boys away from their mothers who had no comfortable place to go when facing illness - the only existing facility at the time was a two-room cabin behind the engine house.

The entire building was projected to cost $15-$20K, so others began to donate. Architect Francis Palmer Smith donated the plans, Samuel Tate, of Tate Marble, donated all the stone and James English, of Chattahoochee Brick, donated all the bricks. These donations were all secured in mid-1909, and in February of 1910, Martin Amorous donated the lumber needed.

The hospital was not completed until 1911 and formally opened in November of that year. In 1987, the building was renamed in memory of Lloyd W. Chapin, Georgia Tech’s former registrar and dean of faculties. Today, it houses the Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion.

So if you’ve listened to my episodes on Chattahoochee Brick and the chain gang system, you may remember that convict leasing was technically abolished on April 1, 1909. We then moved onto the chain gang system. I think these bricks were made and donated before that date and would be considered Chattahoochee Brick.

04/04/2025

✨NEW EPISODE✨

https://linktr.ee/ArchiveAtlanta

This week, I am so excited to share an interview episode with Mike Ayling, who is the writer and researcher behind .

We talked about the story of how he moved into his home Kirkwood, Robert Windsor Smith, Atlanta first amateur ornithologist and we talked about birding and the natural environment of Kirkwood 122 years ago.

This is the pre-1890 house that Robert Windsor Smith moved into when he retired to Kirkwood in 1895.

02/04/2025

Thomas Sumner Lewis and his family lived at 647 Peachtree Street. Mr. Lewis died on New Year’s Eve of 1908. Just months later, his widow Lillie Spalding Lewis filed a building permit for an apartment house in the rear of their property, facing Juniper Street.

The Sumner Apartments were completed in 1909-1910 and built by contractor Nicholas Ittner. Mrs. Lewis put her main home up for rent in 1911 and moved further north in the city. She died in 1919.

You can see on the 1911 Sanborn Fire Map that the apartments are on the Lewis lot. An old photo (so rare!) and a snippet of the first residents in the 1911 City Directory

31/03/2025

Drooling over this c. 1960 ranch house at the corner of Waterford Road and Skipper Drive.

Not sure if they were the very first owners, but an article from 1964 details that Mrs. Deborah Christine Smith was hosting meetings of the Q-Ettes. Her husband, Redic Nathaniel Smith was listed as a housing contractor in the 1950s census but then later worked for Pabst. Deborah sold the home in 2006, the year she died and Redic died in 2009.

29/03/2025

Can’t let Women’s History Month end without talking about the Washerwomen!

Post-Civil War employment options for Black women were bleak; on average they began work as domestics by age 16. Many would become laundresses. While white people now had to pay Black people for services, the dynamics of slavery still existed.

If Black workers demanded better conditions, refused to perform a specific service or work longer hours...their white employers were flabbergasted and some women had their husbands beat their laundresses. White people even appealed to city government and in 1866, the City Council passed an ordinance that required recommendations from previous jobs, making it impossible for workers to quit.

In July of 1881, months before the opening of the International Cotton Exposition, 20 Black women formed the Washing Society and set a rate demand of $1 for every 12 pounds of laundry washed. Within 3 weeks, the Washing Society grew from 20 to 3,000 strikers.

City Council stepped in and required that all washerwomen belong to a union and be required to pay a $25 annual business tax. Again, $25 is months and months of salary, but these women weren’t playing, and what happens next, is my favorite part...

On August 8th, 500 people meet at Wheat Street Baptist Church and together, they draft a public letter to Mayor James English (post above)

MIC DROP. They had some money in the coffers, but this was mostly a bluff. Oh yea, you want a fee? We’ll pay that fee and we’ll control our work. These politically savvy women were willing to pay the fee in exchange for self-regulation. This was about respect, not being subordinate and asserting their freedom and identity.

28/03/2025

In 1907 Sydney H. Phelan announced plans to construct a luxury apartment house in the lot behind his home.

Just months earlier, his wife, Palmer Graham, died of a heart attack at Westview Cemetery, while visiting the grave of their grandchild. When The Palmer was completed in 1908, it was named for her.

Designed by architect G.L. Norrman, it was touted as the first completely fireproof apartment in the South and had one of the earliest elevators. It is the only remaining Norrman-designed apartment house.

It was built as a luxury place to live and those details are still evident today – from the Flemish bond brick pattern, the massive woodwork in each unit and the stone in the central hall.

25/03/2025

Sadye Harris was born in Atlanta in 1889 to William and Aurelia Harris. Her father began his career as a teacher, then going to Meharry Medical College and practicing medicine. After Sadye graduated nursing school in Chicago, she returned home to serve as head nurse for Fair Haven Hospital.

In 1918, she married surgeon Charles Powell, and together they would open one of the few private hospitals for Black Atlantans. Named for her father, William A. Harris Memorial opened around 1928 at (today) 975 MLK Jr Drive.

Charles would perform surgeries and Sadye acted as superintendent. In 1939, Charles died after operating all night, and getting only 4 hours of sleep. He had just recovered from a bout of the flu a few weeks prior and was found still wearing his operating attire.

Sadye died in Boston in 1964 after an extended illness and her body was brought back to Atlanta to be buried in Oakland Cemetery.

24/03/2025

Many of the homes on this side of Linwood Avenue were built by Nora G. Webb. I couldn’t officially confirm this was one, but I think it has female architect vibes, don’t you?

The house was first home to Ernest Fisher, his wife Minnie and their adult son G. Aubrey. Later Aubrey married Pauline “Polly” McGowan. Ernest was a rate engineer with Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Co, and his son also worked there. Ernest died in 1928, his widow in 1936.

Polly Fisher was the Dean of Girls at Washington Seminary and died in 1940. Aubrey lived in the house until his death in 1969!

20/03/2025

This house at the corner of Penn Avenue and 8th Street was built in 1916 for Mr. and Mrs. Strother Callaway Fleming and designed by C.E. Frazier. Frazier also designed Briarcliff Mansion (among so many others). In 1923, the home was sold to Mrs. Dan B. (Bessie) Harris.

In 1939, it became home to Miss Tommie Dora Barker. For the next three decades, the Barker sisters lived here and accomplished incredible achievements across Atlanta. Tommie was named Dean of the Emory Library School (a post she held for 18 years) and was named Atlanta’s Woman of the Year in 1954.

Mary Cornelia Barker was an Agnes Scott grad who taught school, later becoming principal of Ivy Street, Fair Street and John B Gordon Schools. She served as president of the Atlanta Teachers Association and later of the American Federation of Teachers. She became a national figure in the labor movement and locally worked for Black teachers to have equal salaries). She was a charter member of the Atlanta League of Women Voters and worked with the Urban League and Phyllis Wheatley YWCA.

Jennie Meta Barker was a board member at the Atlanta Historical Society and taught history at Commercial High School.

19/03/2025

The Walden Building at 28 Jesse Hill Jr Drive is one of my favorite buildings.

Austin Thomas Walden was one of Atlanta’s first Black attorneys and worked on the most prolific civil rights cases, including representing Horace Ward as the first Black person to attempt enrollment at UGA, the six-year legal battle for equal pay for Black APS teachers, the lunch counter sit-ins of the Student Movement, the takedown of the White Primary, and so many more.

He retired in 1963 at 78 years old, but he maintained his office at the Walden building so he could give free legal advice to the community. He died just two years later.

One of his protégés was Rachel Pruden Herndon, who began working in the office as a secretary.

She never attended law school, but instead learned informally from Walden, by reading the law books in the office and taking a correspondence course. She was also secretary of the local NAACP and the first Black female real estate broker in the state.

In 1937, she sat for the bar exam (at that time the 2nd Black woman to ever do so). Like many, she did not pass on her first attempt but did so in 1943.

In 1948, she, along with 9 other attorneys (including Walden), established the Gate City Bar Association, the third Black bar association in the United States.

Herndon was appointed by Mayor Ivan Allen as the first Black female municipal judge in 1965 and held that post until she resigned in 1973. Herndon died in 1979.

17/03/2025

Completed in 1892, this was one of the first homes built in today’s Midtown. Dr. William Perrin Nicholson was a surgeon and dean/professor at the Southern Medical College, which would become the Atlanta College of Physicians & Surgeons.

He commissioned the design from prominent architect W.T. Downing, and this is now one of only a handful of his residential designs that remain in Atlanta. In 1928 Dr. Nicholson died, and his funeral was held at All Saints Episcopal, with an interment at Oakland Cemetery.

In the recent decades it operated as a popular Bed & Breakfast. the Shellmont Inn, but now a private residence once again.

14/03/2025

Leila Ross Wilburn was born in 1885 and her family moved to Atlanta a decade later. She attended the Calhoun Street School and I found a really funny little article from 1898 where it says “in last Sunday’s paper we wrote that Calhoun’s 5th grade Leila Wilburn had a 95.5 average, but it’s actually 96.4. If you will kindly make the correction, both her friends and her teacher would consider it a favor”.

In 1909, Wilburn opened her own architecture practice in the Peters Building, just like Henrietta Dozier (Atlanta’s first female architect).

Wilburn’s work is all over the city, but only two apartment buildings; one shown here. Piedmont Park Apartments (now called the Wilburn House) were built in 1913.

13/03/2025

This house on John Wesley Dobbs Avenue across from Howard Middle was built in 1910. It was a rental for three years before the Belchers moved in; William, Francis (Fannie) and their daughter Reba.

Fannie Belcher was a nursing graduate of Saint Agnes Hospital in NC and the first Black public health nurse in Atlanta. She was head nurse at the Dwelle Clinic, as well as a prolific club woman and First Congregational member.

Reba got her mother’s pioneering spirit, as she was one of two Black graduates of the Women’s Army Corps motor school during WWII.

Fannie died in 1948, and when William remarried in 1951, they moved to Beckwith Street. William died in 1977 and he is buried at Southview next to Fannie ❤️

12/03/2025

Dr. Leila Daughtry Denmark was born in 1898 and when she applied to Medical College, it was so rare, they accepted her “on probation”. In 1928, she was the third woman to graduate with a medical degree.

She was the first physician on staff at the Henrietta Egleston Hospital, the state of Georgia’s first female pediatrician and was co-developer of the DPT vaccine.

After accepting a residency at , the family moved into this house in Virginia Highland. When daughter Mary was born in 1931, Dr. Denmark wanted to work from home, so she set up the living room as a waiting room and a bedroom as an exam room. She practiced in the neighborhood until 1949.

Leila Denmark retired in 2001, at the age of 103 and lived to be 114 years old.

11/03/2025

483 Moreland was permitted in 1914 by E. Ragland and designed by Leila Ross Wilburn (technically the second female architect in Atlanta, but often considered the first).

In 1921, it was sold to Mrs. CS Holbrook and was later called The Holbook Apartments.

In 1924, it was home to Miss Atlanta (Ep. 222) contestant Marjorie Franklin. By the 1990s, it was owned by Aldo Hartz, who named it the Hartz Building.

10/03/2025

Have you always wondered how to research houses/buildings and places in Atlanta?

I’m excited to announce me and are hosting a two-hour class to teach just that!

“How To Research” will be April 19th at 10am and hosted at the lovely .community. We will discuss the basics of starting research, which sites are needed (free and subscription), several case studies, and, if time allows, take requests from participants.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1270738385719?aff=ebdsshios

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NOT ATLANTA, but wanted to give a spot in the timeline to my recent trip to Darien, GA. Sharing my favorite photos: 1: Wynn-Stuckey House in Eastman. Built 1903. 2: The 1893 Hotel Willard (later Telfair Hotel) in Helena 3: Gene Theater, built in 1950 and named for Eugene Talmadge, in McRae-Helena 4: Captain John L. Day House in Lumber City. Built between 1880-1885, it’s rumored to be the first brick home in the county. 5: Pineland Bank in Alma was opened in 1966 and designed by the owner, Valene Bennett, who was inspired by the 1964 World’s Fair. 6: The Adam Strain building in Darien spurred this entire trip and it’s a tabby building from 1813. It will soon open as Tabby House Brewing. 7: Darien’s St. Cyprian’s Episcopal was built in with tabby in 1876 for the African American people of McIntosh County. 8. The 1883 Darien United Methodist Church 9. Bust of Igor Schwezoff at St. Andrew’s Cemetery. He was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer. 10. St. Simon’s Lighthouse (1810) 11: The Thicket - tabby ruins of the sugar mill and distillery from early 1800s 12: The Bolden Praise House was built by the African American community in Bolden/Briar Patch and is connected with the McIntosh County Shouters. 13. The Robert Verdier mausoleum at Laurel Grove South was recently crushed by a falling tree during the hurricane.

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