Joel Hurt (1850–1926) was an American businessman. He was the president of Trust Company of Georgia, and a developer in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. He was one of the many founders of SunTrust Bank.

Early life

Hurt was born on July 31, 1850, in

Hurtsboro, Alabama Hurtsboro is a town in Russell County, Alabama, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 553, down from 592 in 2000. It was founded in 1857 as Hurtsville and named for Joel Hurt, Sr. (whose son, Joel Hurt, was an important developer ...

, to Lucy Apperson Long (1822–1915) and Joel Hurt, Sr. (1813–1861). The town was originally named Hurtville for Joel Hurt, Sr. He grew up in the Joel Hurt House. After attending Auburn Methodist College in Auburn, Alabama, for one year, he then enrolled at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

in Athens, graduating in 1871 with a degree in civil engineering.

Career

He began his career in the railroad business, surveying first in the western United States the rail bed that became the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

. He also surveyed a small spur off the Richmond and Danville line to

Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the sta ...

. In 1875, Hurt moved to Atlanta, where he organized the Atlanta Building and Loan Association, which he ran for thirty-two years. He also co-founded the

Trust Company of Georgia SunTrust Banks, Inc. was an American bank holding company with SunTrust Bank as its largest subsidiary and assets of US$199 billion as of March 31, 2018. The bank's most direct corporate parent was established in 1891 in Atlanta, where it was h ...

—now part of

Suntrust SunTrust Banks, Inc. was an American bank holding company with SunTrust Bank as its largest subsidiary and assets of US$199 billion as of March 31, 2018. The bank's most direct corporate parent was established in 1891 in Atlanta, where it was h ...

—and, starting in 1895, was its president for nine years. In 1882, he organized the East Atlanta Land Company, where he designed and developed

Inman Park Inman Park is an intown neighborhood on the east side of Atlanta, Georgia, and its first planned suburb. It was named for Samuel M. Inman. History Today's neighborhood of Inman Park includes areas that were originally designated * Inman Park p ...

, a residential area connected to the city center by his Atlanta and Edgewood Street Railway Company, which opened along Edgewood Avenue in 1886. It was Atlanta's first

electric streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

line, and it was the first profitable electric line in America. In 1880, he filed a patent for a thermal water valve and, in 1887, another for a new style of valve cock for faucets handling water under pressure. To anchor the downtown end of his streetcar line, he built Atlanta's first

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

, the Equitable Building, which in 1893 became the home of the two-year-old Trust Company. His next land deal was to be

Druid Hills Druid Hills is a community which includes both a census-designated place (CDP) in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States, as well as a neighborhood of the city of Atlanta. The CDP's population was 14,568 at the 2010 census. The ...

, for which he hired the

Olmsted Brothers The Olmsted Brothers company was a landscape architectural firm in the United States, established in 1898 by brothers John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957), sons of the landscape architect Frederick Law ...

to design a linear park along

Ponce de Leon Avenue Ponce de Leon Avenue ( ), often simply called Ponce, provides a link between Atlanta, Decatur, Clarkston, and Stone Mountain, Georgia. It was named for Ponce de Leon Springs, in turn from explorer Juan Ponce de León, but is not pronounced ...

, but he sold the enterprise to

Asa Candler Asa Griggs Candler (December 30, 1851 – March 12, 1929) was an American business tycoon and politician who in 1888 purchased the Coca-Cola recipe for $238.98 from chemist John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. Candler founded The Coca-C ...

for half a million dollars in 1908. He also built Atlanta's first fireproof theater, the Atlanta Theater (also on Edgewood), and his masterpiece, the Hurt Building (which still stands). In 1908, Hurt was unrepentant in hearings which brought out the shocking abuses in the Hurt family's convict labor camps. His callous indifference to evidence that many of his workers had died of abuse, and his viciousness in asserting that convict workers could not be beaten enough, horrified even contemporary Georgians. These hearings led in large part to the banning of

convict leasing Convict leasing was a system of forced penal labor which was practiced historically in the Southern United States, the laborers being mainly African-American men; it was ended during the 20th century. (Convict labor in general continues; f ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

Personal life, death and legacy

Hurt married Annie Bright Woodruff, and they had six children. He died in 1926. In 1940, land was donated to the city by the Trust Company and a park was dedicated as Hurt Park which lies across Peachtree Center Ave. from the Hurt Building. The Joel Hurt Cottagehttp://tomitronics.com/old_buildings/hurt%20cottage/index.html still stands near Elizabeth and Euclid Streets in Inman Park. ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' bureau chief

Douglas Blackmon Douglas A. Blackmon (born 1964) is an American writer and journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for his book, '' Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.'' Early life and education ...

's 2009

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

-winning book, '' Slavery by Another Name'', revealed the extent to which Joel Hurt's fortune was built upon the profitable and exploitative use of harshly-disciplined and cruelly-deprived convict labor.

External links

Historical Marker Database - Joel Hurt House

References

*Blackmon, Douglas A., ''Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II'', New York : Doubleday, 2008. *Edge, Sarah, ''Joel Hurt and the Development of Atlanta'', Atlanta Historical Society, 1955 *Lichtenstein, Alex. ''Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South''. New York: Verso, 1996. *Mancini, Matthew J. ''One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928''. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. *Martin, Harold, ''Three Strong Pillars'', Trust Company, 1974
A Different Kind of Slavery: After Abolition, Forced Labor Thrived in South; Helping Rebuild Atlanta
''Wall Street Journal'', 2008-03-29 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hurt, Joel 1850 births 1926 deaths American real estate businesspeople History of Atlanta Burials at Oakland Cemetery (Atlanta) University of Georgia alumni Auburn University alumni People from Russell County, Alabama Druid Hills, Georgia