History · Atlanta

A history of Atlanta,
since 1845

Postcards, papers and photographs of Atlanta from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.

1845established
6old images & papers
0recent photos
From Atlanta’s archive · credits on each photo

The story

from WikipediaRead it all ↗

For thousands of years prior to the arrival of European settlers in North Georgia, the indigenous Creek people, Cherokee people, and their ancestors inhabited the area. Standing Peachtree, a Creek village where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River, was the closest Native American settlement to what is now Atlanta. Through the early 19th century, European Americans systematically encroached on the Creek of northern Georgia, forcing them out of the area from 1802 to 1825. The Creek were forced to leave the area in 1821, under Indian Removal by the federal government, and European American settlers arrived the following year.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

built from the dates on the items below
1845Established
1860s6 items · Atlanta, Georgia.) House LOC cwpb.033…Commons
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Finish Atlanta’s story

Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.

0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewAtlanta, Georgia.) House LOC cwpb…, 1864: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10

Famous people from Atlanta

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Atlanta, decade by decade

Then & now

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Rebel fortifications (1864) and it appears here side by side.

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Stories next door

nearby towns’ history

From Wikimedia Commons (5) and the Library of Congress (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.

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Atlanta

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Boundary source: https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/Places_CouSub_ConCity_SubMCD/MapServer/18 · 2025-01-01