History UnderfootAtlanta
  • Institution
  • Early
  • 1843, 1845, 1847; City Hall 1853
  • City of Atlanta

Marthasville becomes Atlanta; the first City Hall

The railroad settlement was incorporated as Marthasville on December 23, 1843, renamed Atlanta on December 26, 1845, and chartered as a city on December 29, 1847. Its first City Hall stood on this block, now the State Capitol grounds, from 1853.

See it on the map All Early records

The record

Marthasville honored the daughter of former governor Wilson Lumpkin; the name Atlanta was said to come from 'Atlantic' and was first used by Georgia Railroad chief engineer J. Edgar Thomson (NGE). The 1847 charter set the city limits one mile in every direction from the State Depot (GHS Zero Mile Post marker). The GHS 'Historic Ground' marker says the first City Hall stood here from 1853 to 1883 and was shared with the Fulton County courts. Atlanta had 2,572 people in 1850, 493 of them enslaved, and 9,554 in 1860, 1,914 of them enslaved (U.S. census).

Today: Georgia State Capitol (1884-89).