Atlanta had never been a true Old Southern city like Savannah or Charleston or Richmond, where wealth had originated with the land. Atlanta was an offspring of the railroad business. It had been created from scratch barely 150 years ago, and people had been making money there on the hustle ever since. The place had already run through three names. First they called it Terminus, because that was where the new railroad ended. Then they named it Marthasville, after the wife of the governor. Then they called it Atlanta, after the Western and Atlantic Railroad and on the boosters’ pretext that the
...more
