Your street grid begins here at Five Points, the intersection that has anchored Atlanta's commerce since the railroad terminus was established in 1837. The original terminus of the Western and Atlantic Railroad was a stake driven into the ground not far from this spot, and the town that grew up around it was initially called Terminus before being renamed Marthasville and finally Atlanta in 1845. Five Points was the address of Atlanta's most important banks, hotels, and commercial establishments through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Capital City Club, founded in 1883 on this block, was the gathering place of Atlanta's white business elite — the same elite that included men like Henry Grady of the Atlanta Constitution, who coined the phrase New South and preached Atlanta's commercial gospel to the nation while defending the racial hierarchy that made it possible. The paradox of Atlanta — a city that celebrated progress while maintaining a rigid racial order — was most visible on these blocks, where Coca-Cola was invented, fortunes were made, and the laws of Jim Crow were enforced just steps from prosperity.