Georgia Natural Wonder #279 - Ponce de Leon Spring - Fulton County (Part 8)

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #279 - Ponce de Leon Spring

Ponce de Leon Springs was a mineral spring in Atlanta, Georgia. The spring was a popular tourist destination from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s. Springs were very popular all around the world. Around the turn of the century, the land surrounding the spring was developed into an amusement park. By the 1920s, the amusement park was demolished, and the area was developed for industrial and, later, commercial properties.

  
Today it is the 4th Ward Park and the spring is used to power this man made waterfall.

Our TRD Scrolling Nugget is Leon Russell for Ponce de Leon.



We have set the precedent for Springs as Natural Wonders in Georgia, having featured them 12 times.

Radium Springs #2


Radium.

Warm Springs #4

Indian Springs #23

Cave Spring #93

Porter Springs #115

Magnolia Springs #118


Magnolia.

Electric Health Resort #130

Lithia Springs #174

Crawfish Springs #195


Crawfish.

Spring Place #203

Watson Springs #211

Seven Springs of Powder Springs #214

Ponce de Leon Spring

A lot of these springs of the early 20th century had resorts around them or they had been hyped as tourist attraction. Residents of Atlanta had known of the spring, which was located about 2 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, since the early 1800s, though it was not until the mid-1800s that they became a popular tourist area as a local destination spa. The mineral content of the water was thought to provide health benefits to drinkers, and the spring was named in reference to the legend of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León's search for the Fountain of Youth in Florida. By the 1870s, there was a streetcar line extending from downtown to the spring, following a route that would later become Ponce de Leon Avenue, one of the city's busiest thoroughfares. In the early 1900s, the spring was sold to developers who created an amusement park on the site, nicknaming it "the Coney Island of Atlanta". 

 

By the 1920s, the amusement park's popularity began to wane and the land was eventually sold to Sears, Roebuck and Co., who built their regional distribution and retail headquarters on the site. 



Today, the building is Ponce City Market, a mixed-use development, and some of the original land that was home to the spring has been developed into the Historic Fourth Ward Park.

Early history

In the United States in the 1800s, numerous mineral spas were developed around naturally occurring mineral springs. These locations, such as Saratoga Springs in New York and White Sulphur Springs in Virginia, were very popular tourist locations as destination spas, while the mineral water produced at the springs was sought out for its perceived health effects. Don't forget Hot Springs Arkansas. In the U.S. state of Georgia, there were eleven such mineral springs that had been commercially developed prior to the American Civil War (See above), though many of those resorts were destroyed during that conflict. In Atlanta, Georgia, around the mid-1800s, there were several natural springs that provided the city's residents with fresh drinking water and leisure areas, such as the Atlanta Mineral Spring. 

Another spring located in the Atlanta metropolitan area was the Ponce de Leon Springs, earliest found image. 

This spring was located northeast of the city, about 1 mile outside of the city limits and 2 miles away from Downtown Atlanta. The area was a low-lying vale where two creeks met, and the spring itself was surrounded by a grove of beech trees. 



People in the area had known of the Ponce de Leon Springs since at least the early 1800s. Between 1818 and 1820, John Young, a cattle rancher from the area, built a house near the spring, and by the 1830s, the spring was being used as a source of drinking water for some local residents. The water originated from a source rock of gneiss and biotite, with the water being chalybeate. The water was considered medicinal and good for health because of its mineral quality. As a result, in the 1860s, Henry L. Wilson, a retired physician from Atlanta, named the spring the Ponce de Leon Springs as a reference to the legend of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León and his search for the Fountain of Youth. 

Popularity as a trolley park 



A black and white illustration of a natural spring, with the words "PONCE DE LEON SPRINGS" written underneath


Illustration of the area in 1881

By the 1860s, the spring was under the private ownership of John Armistead. Around this time, the spring started to become a major source of Atlanta's water supply after Yancey Springs, another freshwater spring in the city, had been filled in in 1868 to make way for a new railroad in the city. By 1870, Ponce de Leon Springs had also become a popular day trip destination for Atlanta citizens. With the spring's popularity well-established, Armistead began bottling the water and established a residential water delivery service by 1871.  That same year, the Atlanta and Richmond Air-Line Railway constructed a railroad near the spring, which was located at the foot of its embankment. This railroad would later come under the ownership of Southern Railway. In 1872, an amphitheater with a dance pavilion was constructed near the spring, and that same year, a local businessman established an omnibus service to the spring, with a one-way fare of $0.50. The service ran between the spring and Kimball House in downtown and helped to increase tourism to the spring. At the time, it was one of only a handful of public parks in the area, alongside Oglethorpe Park, Oakland Cemetery, and a small park near Atlanta City Hall. Around this same time, Richard Peters, a co-owner of the Atlanta Street Railway, took notice of the increasing popularity of the spring and had a route created to the location. 



This route, a part of the railway's Nine-Mile Circle, was an extension of their Peachtree Street line and followed a path that would later become known as Ponce de Leon Avenue, one of the most traveled thoroughfares in the city. The line opened in June 1874 and charged a fare of $0.10, which was twice the amount the railway charged for their other routes. This increased price was due to the remote location of the spring, which was in a sparsely populated area, and the line only ran for six months out of the year, as few people visited the spring during the winter. Additionally, the railway had had to construct a bridge across Clear Creek to reach the spring. By 1884, another rail company, the Gate City Street Railroad, had also established a line to take people from downtown to the spring. In 1875, an article in The Atlanta Constitution called the spring "Atlanta's Charming Suburban Resort". By this time, a bath house had also been built at the spring, and there were numerous vendors selling fruit and ice cream to the visitors. A ten-pin bowling alley was added by 1879, the same year that the spring was discussed in the national publication Harper's New Monthly Magazine, and by 1881, the spring was receiving several thousand visitors annually. The popularity of the spring during this time was part of a larger nationwide trend of trolley parks that had become popular in large cities throughout the United States. 

 
Inman Park Station, still there.

First a natural site of rest and rejuvenation, Ponce de Leon Park's popularity grew in tandem with the Atlanta streetcar system, just as Atlanta's growth in the latter half of the 1800s relied upon its status as a railway transportation hub. As the site's primary attraction shifted from the springs and its natural surroundings to the theater, casino, and rides, Atlanta itself was developing from a small Victorian town into an electrified metropolis.

Purchase by the Atlanta Street Railway


Wading in Creek at Ponce de Leon Park, circa 1890,

In May 1886, Armistead, who still owned the land, began to charge visitors $0.05 to drink water from the spring. Armistead's decision was met with resistance from the Atlanta Street Railway, whose management worried that customer frustration over the charge could hurt their business. However, the following year, the railway purchased the land from Armistead. In January 1888, the railway leased the land to N. C. Bosche, a local businessman who planned to convert the area into a beer garden, though this plan never came to fruition. 

 

Two years later, in 1890, W. A. Hemphill, the president of the railway, hired Julius Hartman, a local landscape designer, to renovate the area. Hartman had previously worked on developing Little Switzerland, an amusement park near Grant Park that would later be known as the White City. Hartman proposed enhancing the natural beauty of the area by adding walking paths and by creating a 4-acre large artificial lake called Ponce de Leon Lake. This lake, as well as a smaller pond called Pairs Pond, were created in mid-1890. 

Amusement park


A color image of Ponce de Leon amusement park from the early 20th century, showing several rides, including a Ferris wheel


The Ponce de Leon amusement park, c. early 20th century

In January 1903, 47 acres of land surrounding the spring was purchased by a company that would eventually be known as the Ponce de Leon Amusement Company, which intended to develop the land as an amusement park. Construction began the following month and saw the creation of several new buildings, a theater, a carousel, and a casino. The owners also brought in many other amusement rides and attractions similar to those found at the resort areas of Coney Island, New York, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, such as a ping pong parlor, a gravity railroad, a Ferris wheel, and a penny arcade, among others. 



Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Park followed this trend. Established at the end of the nineteenth century, it offered Atlantans not only a venue for amusement, but also an interactive stage for emergent technologies. While bubbling springs and fragrant azaleas initially drew visitors to the park, the Ponce de Leon Springs site evolved over four decades into a complex array of manufactured amusements that kept visitors coming back. Equipped with a theater, electric lights, mechanical rides, man-made lakes, picnic grounds, outdoor gardens, and, eventually, a baseball park, Ponce de Leon Park became a nexus between nineteenth-century naturalism and twentieth-century modernism.



The new area soon became known as "the Coney Island of Atlanta". The park was scheduled to open for its inaugural season in May 1903, but this opening was postponed by about a month. The casino opened on June 1 with a performance of The Lady Slavey operetta, and the park as a whole opened to several thousand visitors several days later on June 6.  In 1906, the park was purchased by the Ponce de Leon Park Association, which was run by casino lessee Jack Wells as president, Joseph Whitehead as treasurer, and Hugh L. Cardoza as secretary and manager. The association invested $50,000 into renovations for the park (equivalent to $1,791,667 in 2025), which added new attractions and ushered in the park's heyday. 



Now long gone, the park once served as a gathering place for weekend picnics, concerts, performances, and rides, and served as a microcosm for an emerging modern southern city with evolving social relations. The electric lights and mechanized rides on display at Ponce de Leon Park offered Georgians a playful glimpse of new technology, which developed in step with the growing metropolitan area that surrounded it. While Atlanta’s first baseball stadium eventually rose on the site of the park.

 

In 1907, the lake was filled in and a ballpark, Ponce de Leon Park, was built on the location. 


Also known as Spiller Field. 

This ballpark served as the home venue for the Atlanta Crackers, the city's Minor League Baseball team, who debuted at the park on May 23 of 1907 before 8,000 spectators. 



The ballpark would later also serve as the home venue for the Atlanta Black Crackers, the city's Negro league baseball team, won an Atlanta pro team championship 1938. Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Johnny Big Cat Mize, and Luke Appling played here. Bob Montag hit longest home run ever. Shot to right field landed on box car of train, ended up in Chattanooga. My dad loved to tell that story. 


Ponce de Leon Lake, ca. 1895

This lake was filled in to make way for the Atlanta Crackers baseball field in 1907.

 
Before and after the Ford Factory and Sears Building was built. 

The portion of the lake and the whole baseball complex is now the parking lot for the Midtown Shopping Plaza. 

Later land use


Historic Fourth Ward Park with Ponce City Market in the background, 2012

While the spring and accompanying amusement park remained a popular retreat throughout the early 1900s, by the 1910s, the area around the spring began to see substantial development. In 1914, the Ford Motor Company built a headquarters for their operations in the southeastern United States near the spring. This building served as a factory, showroom, and office for the company until they sold the building to the United States Department of War in 1942. 

 

By the early 1920s, the amusement park had fallen out of fashion and, in 1924, Sears, Roebuck and Co. purchased the land that contained the spring and the amusement park in order to construct their new retail and distribution headquarters for the southeast. In 1966, following the construction of Atlanta Stadium, the Ponce de Leon ballpark was demolished. Following its demolition, the area was converted into commercial real estate and is currently home to Midtown Place, an outdoor shopping mall. In 1990, Sears sold this building to the government of Atlanta, which operated the building for several years as "City Hall East". In 2011, the building was sold by the city to developers who converted it into a mixed-use development called Ponce City Market. Additionally, as of 2016, the Ford building has been converted into an apartment complex called the Ford Factory Lofts. 


Also in the 2000s, a significant amount of land just south of Ponce City Market in what had previously been the spring area was converted into the Historic Fourth Ward Park.


Codo's and Fourth Hotel on right being built. 

The railroad right of way that ran next to the spring area has undergone redevelopment as part of the BeltLine, a series of shared-use paths and urban green spaces that surround the city.


Beltline at Ponce City Market. 

Timeline

Late 1860s – Atlanta residents began visiting the springs in John Armistead’s beech grove two miles east of town, approximately 50 yards south of the intersection of Ponce de Leon and the Atlanta BeltLine. An Atlanta physician named the springs “Ponce de Leon Springs,” based on his assertion that the water held restorative properties. Soon, an omnibus carried passengers daily from Atlanta to the springs for a 10-cent fare. 

  
 
1874 – A new City charter establishes Atlanta’s Fourth Ward, extending to the northeastern city limits, bounded by West Peachtree to the west and the Georgia Railroad tracks to the south. The term “Old Fourth Ward” dates to 1937, when the state legislature reduced the number of city wards from 13 to 6, combining old wards into new ones. The “old fourth ward,” became part of the new 5th Ward. 1954-the ward system ended with the creation of a Board of Aldermen, which lasted until the City Charter of 1974, which created the current Atlanta City Council.



1903 – The Ponce de Leon Amusement Park opens, on the site of what would become the Sears building and Historic Fourth Ward Park. The park featured a casino, theater, merry-go-round, “Cave of the Winds,” penny arcade, two restaurants, and many more attractions.



1907 – The Ponce de Leon Ballpark opens, in what is now the Midtown Plaza shopping center, to host the Atlanta Crackers, who played there until the 1960s.



1928 – Sears Roebuck builds its Southern Regional Distribution Center on Ponce de Leon, then and still, the largest brick building in the Southeast.



1989 – The Sears Roebuck building is purchased by the City of Atlanta and re-christened City Hall East. Lee Haney had a gym in the garage. Mr. Olympia for 8 years. 

 

1999 – The City of Atlanta agrees to a federal consent decree to fix its chronic sewer overflows and other waste treatment problems. The city proposes a 15-year, $3 billion overhaul of the city’s sewer systems. At the time, the Clear Creek basin area, directly south of the Sears Building, is a brownfield of abandoned warehouses and parking lots, which flood with increasing regularity, as do buildings to the north of the basin area.

 

2003 – Bill Eisenhauer, a storm water activist, convenes a group to discuss storm water issues in Old Fourth Ward, particularly in the Clear Creek basin. The group develops a concept plan, showing a 35-acre park with a sustainable storm water detention pond as its central amenity.

 

2006 – The City establishes the Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. (ABI), to create a 22-mile transportation/recreation corridor that will encircle Atlanta’s downtown. ABI establishes plans for a number of parks as part of the project, including the 17.5 acre Historic Fourth Ward Park.

 

2011 – City Hall East is sold to Jamestown Properties, who developed the property, renamed the Ponce City Market, as a mixed-use development of retail, office, condos and apartments, which opened in 2014.

    
Amusement park today is atop Ponce Market. 

2012 – The Atlanta Beltline, Inc., completes Historic Fourth Ward Park, the first major city park on the BeltLine.

 
Modern spring features.

 
Music venue.

   
Don't swim lake but prepare to get wet elsewhere. 

 

Fulton County (Part 8)

We continue with our National Register of Historic Places listings in Fulton County, Georgia. We have 50 left plus 6 former listings. 

Tullie Smith House

 
At the Atlanta History Center. 

  

Southern Bell Telephone Company Building

  
Same guys who built Fox Theater.



We insert a second TRD Scrolling Nugget for this lengthy post. Rotary telephone ladies got me spinning in tribute to our GNW Gal theme at the end of this post. 



Southern Belting Company Building

 

  

Southern Dairies

 

Southern Dairies is often credited as being one of the first warehouse conversions in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood of Atlanta.

 

Southern Railway North Avenue Yards Historic District

 

The Roundhouse at Northyards Business Park was renovated and turned into a business park in 2002 by C.D. Moody Construction.

 

They won the 2002 Atlanta Urban Design Commission's Award of Excellence.

 

Southern Spring Bed Company

The Southern Spring Bed Company is a complex of industrial buildings located one block north of Memorial Drive near Oakland Cemetery in downtown Atlanta. 

 
The Southern Spring Bed Company is significant in the area of industry as one of the largest bed and seat manufacturers in the Southeast. 

 

The company was in business in Atlanta prior to 1887 and was the first and longest operating of Atlanta's spring bed companies. "Spring bed" is a generic term that encompasses beds made of wood or metal frames with metal springs either within the mattress or as box springs. 

  
Spring Lofts now.

Sperry & Hutchinson Company Warehouse

The historic Sperry & Hutchinson (S&H) Company Warehouse in East Point, Georgia, is a former 1954 distribution hub. 

 

Located at 2181 Sylvan Road, the site was famously known for storing S&H Green Stamps. 

 
Today, it serves as the production facility for Arden's Garden after undergoing an award-winning historic preservation.

Spotswood Hall

Built in 1913, its original design attributed to architect A. Ten Eyck Brown, and enlarged and remodeled by Atlanta architect Philip Trammel! Shutze in 1933.

 
 
Spotswood Hall is a two-story, frame, Classical Revival-style house set on a two-acre lot on Argonne Drive in northwest Atlanta. The house sits at the edge of a sweeping lawn atop a prominent hilltop that falls rapidly away to the east and south. 

 

Spotswood Hall is also significant in the area of architecture as a design of two important Atlanta-based architects. 

  

The remodeling of Spotswood Hall was one of Hentz, Adler, and Shutze's few commissions in 1933 and 1934, when the Depression forced the partners to forego their salaries in order to keep the firm afloat.

  

Staff Row and Old Post Area-Fort McPherson

Fort McPherson, one of the most picturesque installations in the south, has been rich in military tradition since its inception in 1889. It has long been an important military post, showplace and point of interest to Atlanta citizens and visitors.

   

Named for General James Birdseye McPherson who was killed in the battle of Atlanta.

  

Many of the buildings survive in the northeast corner of the property in the original quadrangle effect. These red brick structures with white wood trim are all substantial examples of the High Victorian style of architecture.


Quarters 10, indeed the most impressive building of the district, is in basically the Queen Anne style of Victorian Architecture yet it also has elements of the classical style. It has a rambling plan with several turrets with scroll-paned windows of the earlier Victorian era.. In 1925, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was assigned to Fort McPherson as post commander. Since his wife refused to live in the quarters, they rented an apartment downtown near the Fox Theatre. The MacArthurs left after having spent 89 days at Fort McPherson, when he was reassigned to Baltimore. A sleeping porch was added to the back of the quarters in 1935 for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's visits while he was en route to Warm Springs, Georgia. 

Stewart Avenue Industrial Historic District

The Stewart Avenue Industrial Historic District is located about 1.5 miles southwest of downtown Atlanta. Spanning portions of what is now known as Metropolitan Parkway, the district preserves historic 1920s warehouses, mixed-use buildings, and former gas stations.

 
Much of the area was built using heavy timber and steel "mill" construction, which served as an affordable, state-of-the-art fire-safety solution in the 1920s.

The corridor thrived on rail-to-truck transportation. It featured three historic rail lines and was designated an "Official Truck Route" to facilitate Atlanta's growing out-of-state investment and commerce.

 
Nalley Chevrolet and Stewart Lakewood Mall. 

 
Funtown used to be on Stewart Avenue. Abandoned for years.

  
Funtown closed its doors in the mid-sixties because they didn't want to integrate. The fact that a Six Flags opened in Atlanta around the same time may have played a part in its closing. 


The Salvation Army Evangeline Booth College was established for the training of Salvation Army Officers on Stewart Avenue.

Stewart Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church South

The Stewart Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church South is significant in architecture because it is an important local example of the use of the Beaux Arts style in the design of a church.

 

It also contains important interior details, including the pressed metal sanctuary ceiling with a Greek key motif, the coved cornice with an urn motif, and numerous opalescent glass windows.

  

Stone Hall, Atlanta University

  

Stonewall Park Historic District

The Stonewall Park Historic District is a small residential subdivision platted in 1914, just west of the intersection of now-busy thoroughfares Moreland Avenue and Glenwood Avenue in Atlanta. The neighborhood is commonly considered part of Ormewood Park, a much broader residential area composed of a number of smaller subdivisions that proliferated along and around area streetcar lines.

  

It is significant for its intact collection of residential types and styles popular throughout Georgia from the 1910s through the 1950s

Swan House

   

Donald Sutherland's Governors Mansion during Hunger Games. 

 

Julie Ann Moore shot by bow and arrow top steps later Hunger Games movie. 



Also Lee Daniels (The Butler) served here 3 years before serving all those presidents at the White House.

  

Sweet Auburn Historic District

  
Looking east on Auburn, Odd Fellows building, Herndon Building.

  
Big Bethel Church, Atlanta Life Insurance Company, Chef Sonya's Sweet Potato Cheese Cake. 

 
Dr. King's funeral, John Lewis tribute.

Techwood Homes Historic District

 
First Federal Housing project under New Deal of FDR. 

  
Use to be Georgia Tech dorm rooms. 

   
Except for a few historic buildings, Techwood Homes was demolished in 1996 before the 1996 Summer Olympics. It and neighboring Clark Howell Homes are now a mixed-use area called Centennial Place.

The Temple

 

   
Bombed in late 50's as dramatized in Driving Miss Daisy Academy Award best film 1989. 

The Texas

  
Use to be at Zoo, now at Atlanta History Center in Buckhead. 

Albert E. Thornton House

 

Thornton Building

   

  

Henry B. Tompkins House

  

  

Trio Steam Laundry

Constructed in the early twentieth century, it served as a major laundry facility during a period of rapid urban and industrial growth on Atlanta’s east side. 

 

The building is noted for its brick construction, functional industrial design, and association with the city’s early commercial service industries.

  

Troy Peerless Laundry Building

The Troy Peerless Laundry Building is significant in the area of architecture because it survives as one of Atlanta's best examples of small-scale Art Deco architecture. 

 

Its polychromatic decorative panels with stylized foliated forms are characteristic of the Art Deco phase of early modern architecture. 

  

The high-style Art Deco ornamentation on the Troy Peerless Laundry Building indicates not only the success of Atlanta Laundries but also the importance of the commercial laundry industry in Atlanta in the first decades of the 20th century.

  

Trust Company of Georgia Northeast Freeway Branch

The Trust Company selected the architectural firm of Abreu & Robeson, Architects to design a branch bank to service then-explosive development in the area of Monroe Drive and the Northeast Expressway, and exploit the visibility afforded by the new area highway. 

 

An outstanding example of New Formalism in Atlanta. 

 

Character-defining features of this architectural style include the building's pedestal form and simplified classical features such as symmetrical bays and arches. 

 
Restaurant now. 

Trygveson

 
(often referred to as the Calhoun-Thornwell House or "The Pink Castle")

A Baroque Italian Villa, with stucco walls and a red tile roof. This house still retains much of its grandeur- Interior exhibits much Baroque ornament and has one Allyn Cox Mural still remaining.

  

The best example of an Italian Baroque Villa in Georgia. The siting of the house and comprehensive landscape design now much altered are testament to the talent of Philip Shutze and the firm of Hentz, Reld, and Adler. 

  
The privately-owned residence is celebrated for its pale pink facade and lush grounds. Originally on 18 acres now on about 2 acres. Stone columns flanked driveway, now a whole subdivision built around estate. 

Tuxedo Park Historic District

Tuxedo Park is an exclusive, prestigious historic neighborhood in Atlanta’s Buckhead district. 

 
Established in 1911 as one of the city's first automobile-oriented suburbs, it originally served as a summer estate retreat for Atlanta's elite and is now renowned for its sprawling, secluded estates and magnificent architecture.

   
Originally a seasonal escape, it transitioned into a year-round residence that has housed Atlanta's wealthiest citizens, including Coca-Cola executives and golf legend Bobby Jones.

Mary Elizabeth Tyler House

The Tyler House is significant in the area of architecture because it is a good example of a Classical Revival-style house. 

  

The Mary Elizabeth Tyler House is significant in the area of social history because of its association with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s. It's success fed on the racism and xenophobia created by D. W. Griffith's 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation," and the lynching of Leo Frank. (GNW#133 - Part 4)

    

In 1919, in an effort to revive the flagging Ku Klux Klan, Imperial Wizard William J. Simmons, who had begun cross-burning ceremonies atop Stone Mountain in 1915, hired Klan member Edward Young Clarke and his business partner Mary Elizabeth "Bessie" Tyler to boost Klan membership rolls. It went from a regional order to a nationwide social and political organization.Tyler and Clarke began their work with the Klan in 1919 when the Klan had a membership of 2,000 to 3,000. By 1921, the Klan numbered almost 100,000 members, and by 1924 membership reached almost three-and-a-half million.

Tyree Building

  
The Tyree is one of the first buildings in Atlanta built in the Beaux-Arts style.

  
The apartments were converted into condominiums in 1980.

U.S. Post Office and Courthouse

 

 

  

Underground Atlanta Historic District

 

 

   

   

Dante's Down the Hatch was a legendary Atlanta, Georgia, restaurant and jazz club operated by Dante Stephenson from 1970 to 2013. 

  

Famous for its 18th-century pirate ship decor, a moat filled with live crocodiles, live jazz, and fondue, the iconic establishment left a lasting legacy on the city.

  

United States Post Office, Federal Annex

 

 
Now the Martin Luther King Federal Office Building.

  

Utoy Cemetery

 
We explored this cemetery with (GNW #267 - Part 2)

E. Van Winkle Gin and Machine Works

The site specialized in cotton-related machinery in 1898. 

 

During World War II, the complex produced ammunition. 

  

Now it is the Goat Farm Arts Center.

   

The Goat Farm Arts Center is a visual and performing arts center and contains the studio space of over 300 artists.



Villa Lamar

 
The Villa Lamar is significant in architecture because it is among the finest examples in Georgia of the use of the Italian Renaissance style, exemplified in the use of marble, mosaic tile, a tile roof, the Palladian style entrance loggia, and overall massing of the building. 

  
All the exterior design here. 

It is also significant as the only known work in Georgia of a nationally-known architect from Washington, D. C., George 0. Totten, Jr. (1865-1939). Totten studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris from 1893 to 1895. 

  

His post-educational training included working for the U. S. government, assisting in designing many monumental buildings.

  

Oh Boy, I can finish up the National Register of Historic Places listings in Fulton County, Georgia with our next post. We have 25 left plus 6 former listings. Our GNW Gals for this post are with a Ferris Wheel like the Coney Island of the South. 

   

Hopefully Blood Sweat and Tears are still playing. The TRD Natural Wonders of Georgia spin on, 22 post on Atlanta and Fulton County so far.