1901
§ After years of traffic dodging trains where Peachtree and Whitehall Streets meet, a bridge is finally built over the tracks. (This bridge begins the process that will result in Underground Atlanta.)
§ Baptist Tabernacle Infirmary and Training School for Christian Nurses is founded, later to become Georgia Baptist Medical Center.
1902
§ The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary opens with the transfer of six convicts from Sing Sing in New York.
§ Carnegie Library opens.
§ A race riot, later known as the "Pittsburgh Riot" after that section of the city, leaves three policemen, two black and one white civilian dead.
1903
§ George Washington Collier, Atlanta's longest surviving early settler, dies.
§ Edwin Ansley begins developing a neighborhood that will bear his name.
§ The Independent begins publication. It is Atlanta's first black newspaper.
1904
§ A bad year for the relatively new invention called the “automobile”: After one of Atlanta's first auto accidents (car collides with trolley and horse-drawn surrey on Peachtree; car was wrecked, horse was fine), the Board of Aldermen/City Council says drivers must get license from city clerk and sets speed limit of 8 MPH in the city. Less than two months later, a Marietta chemist dies after losing control of his car on Marietta Street, becoming Atlanta's first auto accident fatality.
1905
§ The new Terminal Station opens at Mitchell Street and Madison Avenue.
§ Pres. and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt arrive in Atlanta after a visit to his mother's home in Roswell.
§ Under leadership of former slave and ex-barber Alonzo Herndon, the Atlanta Life Insurance Company is formed. Herndon is Atlanta's first black millionaire. His home still stands near Morris Brown College and is open to visitors.
1906
§ The 17-story Candler Building (still standing today) is dedicated on Peachtree and Houston Streets.
§ Four days of race rioting in September leave ten African Americans and two whites dead. A report issued by the Chamber of Commerce blames whites for the disturbances. The riot began after a gubernatorial campaign in which one candidate, Hoke Smith (of Atlanta Journal and Grover Cleveland cabinet fame), promised to take away the black vote.
1908
§ Prohibition wins a state referendum but Atlanta bars win right to sell "near beer."
§ Joel Chandler Harris dies at age 59. The Uncle Remus Memorial Association is formed and will eventually buy his home, "Wren's Nest," and keep it up in his honor.
1909
§ Atlanta Taxicab Company introduces the city to taxis, eight of them. The fare is 30 cents for the first half-mile, then 10 cents each additional quarter mile.
§ The Atlanta Crackers win the pennant of the Southern League.
§ Atlanta's first black-owned bank, Atlanta State Savings Bank, is formed.
1910
§ Atlanta's population: 154,839, 33.5 percent being black.
1911
§ Winner of the city junior golf championship: Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones, 9. It would be the beginning of a great golf career.
§ Grand opening of the Georgian Terrace Hotel on Peachtree and Ponce.
1913
§ On April 26, at the National Pencil Factory, Mary Phagan is murdered. Leo Frank is arrested for the nationally famous crime; he will be convicted and later lynched by an anti-Semitic mob in 1915. About sixty years later, Frank will be pardoned.
§ The Winecoff Hotel opens on Peachtree Street.
1914
§ The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta opens on the second floor of the Hurt Building, with $4-million in gold.
1915
§ The Educational Commission of the Methodist Church having announced its decision the previous summer to establish a university, Emory University is granted a charter. Coke's Asa Candler had pledged $1-million to the school.
§ Gutzon Borglum of New York visits Atlanta to see if Stone Mountain is suitable for a huge sculpture of Confederate heroes.
1916
§ Board of Aldermen/City Council approves the purchase of trucks to replace some of the horses in the Atlanta Fire Department. The measure provided for faster response to fires in the growing city.
§ With the urging of citizens, Asa Candler of Coca-Cola runs for mayor and wins.
1917
§ The "Hanson Six" automobile, selling for about $1,000, is manufactured in Atlanta.
§ Fires start all over Atlanta, burning almost two thousand houses and leaving one person dead and 10,000 (mostly African Americans) homeless.
1918
§ The Federal Reserve Bank opens on Marietta Street.
1919
§ Isadore M. Weinstein, an Atlanta war vet, opens a shop on Walker Street to supply linens to restaurants. The company later becomes the National Linen Service.
§ Asa Candler sells the Coca-Cola Company to a group led by Ernest Woodruff for $25-million. The Woodruff family takes the company to worldwide prominence.
§ One year before the nation ratifies the 19th Amendment, 4,000 women vote in the primaries in Atlanta.
1920
§ A referendum for reading the Bible in public schools passes 7,631 to 1,865.
§ Atlanta population: 200,616.
1921
§ The Cyclorama building is dedicated in Grant Park. The fireproof building houses the circular painting of the Battle of Atlanta.
1922
§ WSB, the first commercial broadcast station licensed in the South, is granted. The radio station is owned The Atlanta Journal. The Constitution soon begins broadcasting on its WGM, but later donates it to Georgia Tech, renamed WGST.
§ Rebecca Latimer Felton of DeKalb County is selected to fill the office of late Sen. Tom Watson, thereby becoming the first woman member of the U.S. Senate. She served one day.
§ Atlanta Constitution reporter Bessie Kempton becomes the first woman to win a seat in the Georgia Legislature.
1923
§ Robert Woodruff named president of Coca-Cola.
§ The million-dollar Spring Street viaduct opens.
§ Borglum beings carving the face of Robert E. Lee on the side of Stone Mountain.
1924
§ The fabulous Biltmore Hotel opens at a cost of $6-million.
§ A municipal farmers' market opens on Edgewood Avenue, next to what is now the entrance to the interstate.
1925
§ The Stone Mountain Memorial Association cancels Gutzon Borglum's contract. He then destroys the models and flees the town. He is replaced by Augustus Lukeman, who begins his work by blasting away Borglum's work. (Borglum later went on to carve Mt. Rushmore.)
1926
§ Mrs. H.M. High donates her home to Atlanta on the condition it become an art museum. It opens in October. The multi-million dollar High Museum of Art still carries her name.
§ Air Mail service begins between Atlanta and Miami.
§ Asa Candler donates 53 acres to the city, which becomes Candler Park.
§ The Sears Roebuck building begins construction on Ponce de Leon. It later becomes City Hall East.
1927
§ R.H. Macy, having purchased Davison-Paxon-Stokes two years prior, opens the six-story Davison's department store at Peachtree and Ellis streets.
1928
§ The Stone Mountain carving design is unveiled but the project is put on hold due to lack of funds, and Stone Mountain's owners, the Venable family, reclaim the mountain, unfinished carving and all.
§ Egleston Hospital for Children opens.
§ General Motors opens a plant in Lakewood.
1929
§ Georgia Tech wins the Rose Bowl.
§ Coca-Cola magnate Asa Candler dies.
§ The Fox Theatre opens.
§ Under the leadership of Alderman William B. Hartsfield, the city buys land for a city airport, an old crop dusting strip named Candler Field. Daily flights between Atlanta and Birmingham begin.
1930
§ The new 14-story City Hall on Mitchell Street opens at a cost of $1-million. The building still stands today and serves as the City Hall Tower, which includes many city bureaus and offices. During its heydays, the building was touted as the grandest City Hall in the South.
§ Manufactured gas is replaced by natural gas, which begins arriving in pipelines from Louisiana.
§ Air passenger service between New York and Atlanta begins, followed next year by Atlanta-Miami service. Atlanta is added to the coast-to-coast airmail route.
§ The Fulton County Grand Jury probe of Atlanta municipal graft results in 15 convictions and ousting of many office-holders at the polls.
1931
§ Southern Bell installs dial service.
§ Atlanta votes to keep itself on Central Standard Time (slow time). The city is currently on Eastern Standard Time.
1932
§ Fulton County is enlarged by the merger into it of Milton and Campbell counties.
§ Anticipating that the whites-only primary will be someday declared unconstitutional, black leaders set up citizenship schools to teach African Americans how to register to vote.
§ Atlanta's first air terminal, at Candler Field, is dedicated.
1933
§ It's the depression, and the city Finance Committee cuts municipal salaries by 20 percent. City banks deny credit to City Hall unless it cuts the $14-million budget by $1-million.
§ Eastern Air Transport moves its headquarters to Atlanta (and will soon change its name to Eastern Airlines).
1934
§ Construction of Atlanta's new sewer system, financed by the federal Public Works Administration, is begun. Prior, half of all sewage was dumped in streams leading to the Chattahoochee River.
§ Coca-Cola helps bail out the city of Atlanta from its $1-million-plus deficit by advancing it $800,000.
§ Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, leads a voter registration march to City Hall. Retired railroad mail clerk John Wesley Dobbs organizes the Atlanta Civil and Political League to encourage black involvement in politics.
1935
§ President Roosevelt dedicates Techwood Homes, the nation’s first federally assisted public housing project. He then visits University Homes, Techwood's black counterpart.
1936
§ Gone With The Wind is published.
§ Coca-Cola says it will back the financially strapped City’s payroll, allowing Atlanta scrip to be honored at face value by banks.
§ Former Alderman William B. Hartsfield elected mayor. Hartsfield displayed a can-do tenacity as he wrestled with the problems of a city racked by the Depression and administrative chaos. Within three years, he overhauled the police and fire departments, increased revenues and brought bookkeeping procedures into the 20th century. To cap it off, Hartsfield hosted the world at the premiere of the film "Gone With the Wind" in December 1939.
1937
§ GWTW author Margaret Mitchell wins the Pulitzer for her book.
§ The Atlanta Journal opens Radio station WAGA.
1938
§ The nation's first air traffic control tower opens for business at the Atlanta Airport.
§ U.S. 41, Georgia's first four-lane highway, opens between Atlanta and Marietta.
§ Ralph McGill is named executive editor and columnist of the Constitution.
1939
§ The movie "Gone With The Wind" has its world premiere at Leow's Grand Theatre on Peachtree.
§ Former 1920 Democratic presidential candidate James M. Cox buys The Atlanta Journal and its WSB radio station. He also buys out the Journal's competitors and closes them down.
§ The Catholic Co-Cathedral of Christ the King is dedicated on land once owned by the Ku Klux Klan, whose Imperial Wizard is invited to the ceremony.
1940
§ Atlanta's population: 302,288, of which about one-third are black.
§ Work to build the Atlanta Naval Air Station, today's Peachtree DeKalb Airport, begins.
§ A series of floggings in Fulton County are traced to the KKK, ten members of which are indicted.
§ Throughout 1940, Mayor Hartsfield failed to notice the popularity of mayoral challenger Roy LeCraw, an ambitious insurance man and former Chamber of Commerce president. When the votes were in that fall, LeCraw had eked out a victory. Hartsfield loss partly because of his insistence that City police chase down speeders and crush the "bug," a well-entrenched illegal lottery that operated throughout the city. The crackdown on speeders in particularly nourished resentments. Many motorists - some nailed a dozen times or more for going 30 in a 25-mph zone - began to see the practice as an annoying way of generating revenue. Besides, the mayor was a notoriously reckless driver, according to Atlanta newspapers.
§ Hartsfield later issued his famous quote about running for re-election. He said: "You've got to fight every time. You could pave the streets with gold, reduce taxes to a nickel a year and scent the sewers with Chanel No. 5 - and they wouldn't remember you unless you reminded them."
1941
§ Delta Airlines moves its headquarters to Atlanta. Delta Airlines began operations in 1924 as the world's first crop dusting service and was named in honor of the Mississippi Delta.
§ Four New Deal housing projects -- Capitol Homes, Egan, Grady, and Herndon -- are completed, bringing the number of Atlanta federally funded projects to eight.
§ Governor Eugene Talmadge says he will withhold newsworthy information from The Journal and The Constitution unless they "correct their attitude."
1942
§ Marietta named as home of the Bell assembly plant of B-29 bombers, predicted to bring 40,000 jobs.
§ Atlanta Mayor Roy LeCraw resigns to enlist in the army. William Hartsfield is elected to replace him (and will be at that post through 1961.)
§ Atlanta population in December: 473,800, according to the Chamber of Commerce. The area begins to surpass its sister city, Birmingham, Ala., as the most populated metropolitan area in the South and Southeast business center, despite a lack of natural resources, such as coal and iron ore.
1943
§ Mayor Hartsfield, who by now had gained a reputation as one of Atlanta’s biggest sales men and boosters, purposes the city subsidize development of unused residential neighborhoods in hopes of persuading residents not to move away after the war.
1944
§ Atlanta pays the lowest wages in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
§ Among prominent Atlanta African Americans who failed an attempt to vote in Georgia's all-white primary are Martin Luther King Sr. and Professor Clarence Bacote, head of Atlanta University's history department, although all of them were registered to vote in the general election.
1945
§ A train carrying the body of FDR north passes through Atlanta a day after his death in Warm Springs, GA.
1946
§ 119 people die when the Winecoff Hotel burns, even now listed as one of the worst fire tragedies in the nation's history. The hotel will reopen in 1951 as the Peachtree Hotel.
§ The U.S. Supreme Court rules the Georgia all-white primary unconstitutional in the case of Chapman vs King. A massive two-month voter drive raises the number of Atlanta African Americans registered from under 7,000 to over twenty-four thousand.
§ Governor-elect Eugene Talmadge dies before taking office, leaving the state in confusion as to who legally succeeds him.
1947
§ The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is formed.
§ Voters defeat Mayor Hartsfield’s plan to annex Buckhead and Cascade Heights.
§ The city's high schools end their gender segregation. Tech High and Boys High combine to become coed Grady High, while Girls High becomes coed Roosevelt High.
§ The Board of Aldermen/City Council okays hiring black policemen, but the police union wins a stay order preventing it.
1948
§ The stay order is overturned and eight black policemen are hired.
§ WSB-TV, the South's first TV station, goes on the air. The Rich Foundation gives WABE to the Atlanta Public Schools.
§ General Motors opens a plant in Doraville, Ford having opened its Hapeville plant the year before.
1949
§ While crossing Peachtree Street with her husband, a speeding car strikes Margaret Mitchell. She dies five days later.
§ Atlanta Board of Aldermen/City Council moves against the KKK by banning wearing of masks in public.
§ African Americans vote in a mayoral primary for the first time since the whites-only primary was ruled unconstitutional. Many overwhelmingly support Hartsfield.
§ It was Sunday, April 10, 1949. The Brooklyn Dodgers were in town to play the Atlanta Crackers in an exhibition series. Far more specifically and significantly, Jackie Robinson was in town, the first black man ever to play baseball with whites in Atlanta. Two years earlier, on April 15, 1947, Robinson, in the terminology of the time, had "broken the color barrier" in major-league baseball.
1950
§ Atlanta Journal owner James Cox takes over The Atlanta Constitution and merges the two papers' production, ad sales and Sunday editions.
§ Two hundred black children and their parents petition to end segregation in the city schools. The petition will be denied.