Atlanta City Hall is the headquarters of the

City of 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 ...

government. It was constructed in 1930, and is located in

Downtown Atlanta Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The larger of the city's two other commercial districts ( Midtown and Buckhead), it is the location of many corporate and regional headquarters; city, county ...

. It is a high-rise office tower very similar to dozens of other city halls built in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

during the same time period. Located in

South Downtown South Downtown is a historic neighborhood of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. South Downtown is primarily home to city, county, state, and federal governmental offices, which prompted the city to adopt signage declaring the area "Govern ...

, it is near other governmental structures, such as the

Georgia State Capitol The Georgia State Capitol is an architecturally and historically significant building in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The building has been named a National Historic Landmark which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As ...

and the Fulton County Courthouse. The

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

structure features many architectural details that have helped to make the building a historical landmark. It is Atlanta’s fourth city hall.

History

Early city hall buildings

After half a decade of makeshift meeting places for city business (including

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

s and

grocery store A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...

s), in 1853

mayor of Atlanta Here is a list of mayors of Atlanta, Georgia. The mayor is the highest elected official in Atlanta. Since its incorporation in 1847, the city has had 61 mayors. The current mayor is Andre Dickens who was elected in the 2021 election and took o ...

John Mims John F. Mims (November 10, 1815 – April 30, 1856) sixth mayor of Atlanta and agent of the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company. In the late 1840s he founded a flour mill with Lemuel Grant, Richard Peters and his younger brother William Peters ...

purchased the four-acre (16,000 m²) “Peters’s Reserve” from Richard Peters for $5,000. On this land (current site of the

) was built a two-story

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

structure (with an additional two-story

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, f ...

) for the

city hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

as well as some

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...

functions. Each floor was 70 by providing nearly of space. It opened on October 17, 1854, and served for three decades during which time it served as campgrounds for the occupying

Union army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

during the war and was briefly the state capitol during 1868 when the capital first moved from

Milledgeville, Georgia Milledgeville is a city in and the county seat of Baldwin County in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is northeast of Macon and bordered on the east by the Oconee River. The rapid current of the river here made this an attractive location to b ...

. It was

demolish Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a bu ...

ed in 1885. In 1882, Atlanta City Hall was relocated to the old

chamber of commerce A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ...

building, which was four stories tall and located on the northeast corner of Pryor and Hunter, across Hunter (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) from the site of the Fulton County Courthouse. It was the city hall from 1882 to 1911, leaving the same year that the Courthouse started construction.

1911–1930 City Hall building

In 1911, the city hall moved to what once the U.S. Post Office and Customs House, located on the north side of

Marietta Street Marietta Street is a historic street in Downtown Atlanta. The street leads from Atlanta towards the town of Marietta, as its name indicates. It begins as one of the five streets intersecting at Five Points, leading northwest, forming the sou ...

between Forsyth and Fairlie. Purchased from the

U.S. federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a f ...

Atlanta mayor Here is a list of mayors of Atlanta, Georgia. The mayor is the highest elected official in Atlanta. Since its incorporation in 1847, the city has had 61 mayors. The current mayor is Andre Dickens who was elected in the 2021 election and took o ...

Robert Maddox Robert Foster Maddox (April 4, 1870 – 1965) was the 41st Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. Biography Maddox was born on April 4, 1870 to Robert Flournoy Maddox, an early Atlanta settler and war hero. He was educated in public school, and then at ...

for $70,000 (equivalent to $ million in ), this imposing structure served as city hall for nearly twenty years. It was so solidly built that the first company hired to raze it actually went out of business before completing the job.

Current building

The current city hall, designed by G. Lloyd Preacher, was completed in February 1930. Located in

at 68 Mitchell Street SW, the building occupies the site of the house that General

William Tecumseh Sherman William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), achieving recognition for his com ...

took as the headquarters of his occupation after his Atlanta Campaign and before his March to the Sea (Sept.–Nov., 1864). The house was one of the few buildings in Atlanta that Sherman did not destroy. At the time, it belonged to

Richard F. Lyon Richard "Dick" Francis Lyon (born 1952) is an American inventor, scientist, and engineer. He is one of the two people who independently invented the first optical mouse devices in 1980. He has worked in many aspects of signal processing and wa ...

, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. This building is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. An annex was completed in 1989, and the building was designated a “landmark building exterior” on October 23 of that year. On the fifth floor of the building, there is a 3,000 square foot area called the Green Roof. It was completed in 2003, and contains a

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

with 2,800 plants from 31 species.

City Hall East

Between 1990 and 2010 some city hall services had been available at City Hall East, located on

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 ...

in the

Old Fourth Ward The Old Fourth Ward, often abbreviated O4W, is an intown neighborhood on the eastside of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The neighborhood is best known as the location of the Martin Luther King Jr. historic site. Geography The Old Fourth Wa ...

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

, northeast of downtown. The building formerly belonged to

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

. The city of Atlanta sold the building in June 2011 to Jamestown, a developer, which agreed to pay $27 million for the property. It was renamed Ponce City Market.

Photo gallery

Image:City Hall in Background.jpg, Atlanta City Hall seen behind The Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which was built in 1873 Image:City Hall Over Trees.jpg, Atlanta City Hall overlooking trees Image:City Hall in Full.jpg, Front facade of building Image:City Hall Door Detail.jpg, Front door detail Image:City Hall Top.jpg, Gothic Revival top Image:City Hall Street Level.jpg, Street level ornamentation File:Neal-Lyon-Neal House Atlanta 1864.png, The Neal Home previously on the current City Hall site

References

NYT 1991 article

Atlanta, Georgia, a National Park Service ''Discover Our Shared Heritage’' Travel Itinerary
{{Atlanta landmarks Skyscraper office buildings in Atlanta City and town halls on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state) City halls in Georgia (U.S. state) Late Gothic Revival architecture G. Lloyd Preacher buildings Government buildings completed in 1930 Gothic Revival architecture in Georgia (U.S. state) Historic American Buildings Survey in Georgia (U.S. state) National Register of Historic Places in Atlanta