History UnderfootAtlanta
  • Waterworks
  • Water
  • 1892-93; still in use
  • City of Atlanta
  • Location approximate

Hemphill Avenue water works (1893)

Atlanta's second water works, built in 1892-93 on Hemphill Avenue at Fourteenth Street after the Lakewood system proved inadequate. It is still in service.

See it on the map All Water records

The record

Mayor William A. Hemphill took office in 1891 and pushed for a new system drawing on the Chattahoochee; the city authorized $500,000 in bonds and let contracts that year. City engineer Robert M. Clayton and superintendent William G. Richards designed settling basins, filters and a pure-water pumping station, built by S. B. Mosby & Co. of Virginia, and by September 1893 the city was drinking pumped river water. The taller block of the red-brick complex dates from 1908; chlorination began in 1917 and square filters came in 1932. The city added the Chattahoochee Water Treatment Plant in 1962.

Today: City of Atlanta Hemphill Water Treatment Plant.