Decatur Street, You Make Me Sick!
Decatur Metro | August 24, 2010I love this rambling, slightly frustrated description of Atlanta’s Decatur Street on Wikipedia.
Having grown from very humble beginnings, the City of Atlanta’s streets are not organized in rational rectilinear patterns like better organized cities. Rather the Atlanta metropolitan area exhibits the “cluster of grapes” pattern; dozens of small communities (including Atlanta) squashed “cheek by jowl” with each having a road running to each in an overlapping maze. For that reason Atlanta’s streets, such as Decatur Street, can be confusing. Decatur Street for example runs from Atlanta to Decatur on the east. However once you pass by the “zero mile post” in downtown Atlanta’s Five Points district heading west, the same road runs to northwest to the community of Marietta. Hence Decatur Street is the same street as Marietta Street. The situation is made more confusing when leaving the city limits of, in this example, Atlanta, because when one enters the “neutral zone” between cities another street name is used, and when entering the “remote” city yet another name is used. So, traveling on this one street from Marietta on the northwest the sequence is: Atlanta Road, Marietta Boulevard, Marietta Street, Decatur Street, DeKalb Avenue (DeKalb being Decatur’s county), and finally Howard Avenue in Decatur; all this in under twenty-five miles. (This leave out the “West” and “East” variants that are also present.) For this reason you can see why it is frequently said “half the streets in Atlanta are named Peachtree but all the others have three or four names to make up for it.”
Civil War-era Decatur Street picture also courtesy of the Wikipedia entry.
The changing road names are to confuse and hinder the next invading Yankee army that tries to burn the town…or so I have always been told.
I also understand that metro Atlanta street development was historically shaped by its numerous creeks which required so many fords, ferrys, and bridges that roads had to leave the grid to bend and turn and accomodate them. Inside neighborhoods, with the exception of the tiny cores of a few downtowns, are mostly a series of natural and planned cul-de-sacs.
Interesting. But are there really that many unfordable creeks in Atlanta?
Got me! They mostly seem to run in people’s dirt/concrete basements these days! There ARE a ton of streets with names that seem to refer to creeks or streams-Houston Mill, Mason Mill, Shallowford, Nelson Ferry, Flat Shoals, W. or E. Paces Ferry, Howell Mill, Henderson Mill, Durand Mill, Rock Springs, Montgomery Mill, Cheshire Bridge, Rockbridge, etc. And what may seem “fordable” on foot probably weren’t in the days of carriages or Model T’s. But it’s hard to know. “Lake” names mean nothing in this area–there’s no East Lake or Lake Claire or Glenn Lake to swim in to the best of my knowledge.
Isn’t “East Lake” the lake in the golf course? I was surprised to find out just last year that there actually is a “North Lake” in the Northlake area… I’m not sure if there is a “South Lake” in the Southlake area, or a “West Lake” in the West Lake area? Maybe they used to exist, and were filled in for development?
I would suspect that those lakes are/were all man-made.
Oh, I’m sure they were man made, but they exist, and why the areas were named, I’m guessing
Yes, East Lake is so named after the lake that is now surrounded by the golf course. It was originally a fairgrounds, before the Atlanta Athletic Club bought the property and built the course.
I don’t know if it was manmade or not – it is obviously fed by a creek, and may have naturally occurred or simply been the result of a small dam that backed up water into that low area. i.e. no major earth moving.
I know there’s truly an Echo Lake lake but I’m also pretty sure that there’s no Lake Claire lake and I’ve never found even a pond that would count as a Glen Lake as in Glenlake Park. Or is that the pond in the cemetary? I guess I consider a lake to be something that can support fish, swimming, some boats, docks, and enough water that it doesn’t dry up and disappear. As opposed to a pond which may be nothing but water, mush and insects. From Wikipedia: “There is considerable uncertainty about defining the difference between lakes and ponds……For example, limnologists have defined lakes as waterbodies which are simply a larger version of a pond, which have wave action on the shoreline or where wind-induced turbulence plays a major role in mixing the water column….there has been increasing use made of simple size-based definitions to separate ponds and lakes. One definition of lake is a body of water of 2 hectares (5 acres) or more in area…..”
I guess I’m puzzled about why an area would have “lake” in the name but no lake. That’s just not something I ran into before I lived in Atlanta. And it makes me wonder whether all those “ferrys”, “fords”, and “bridges” refer to currently or once existing water or not. But I heard that there really are mills, ferries, fords, and bridges behind those street names.
Some suburban (read OTP) names are far more creative than that. They’re even bad contrivations (another new word!)
What about “shoals”?
Or, one of my favorites, Beaver Ruin.
(Those damn beavers, what’s wrong with them? going around destroying the environment…and another thing….)
well, shoals are just raised area of land in a river (like a sandbar), so I can imagine where the name “Flat Shoals” came from (though not sure of what river–South River?).
There was a lake in Lake Claire, it was in the low area that is now the Cator Woolford Gardens. It was roughly bounded by Lakeshore Drive and Ponce to the East and North. It was drained a long time ago, but the street names remain.
PS – I love the “Ski Lake Claire” bumper stickers.
Not mention the incongruity of Ponce de Leon–sounds like Florida.
The Ponce name is because of a natural spring that was discovered at the site of what is now City Hall East. People started flocking to the springs, thinking the water had healing powers, and the road that runs through it was thus named Ponce De Leon.
Interesting to note – after the springs were discovered a manmade lake was formed at the site. That whole low area that is the huge City Hall East building, as well as Home Depot and so on, was underwater. That’s why there’s that incongruous mill structure at Masquerade.
And here I thought it was to commemorate the enslaving and slaughter of natives. That is what Florida does.
Was he really looking for the Fountain of Youth?
Thanks for the info about Ponce, I’ve always wondered the origin of the name here
Wow. Thanks for this info. Even elderly Lake Claire residents claim there’s never been a lake. Who knew?!
Dave of InDecatur and I had a conversation about the naming of Nelson Ferry Road WAY back in late 2007 (damn, I can’t believe this site is almost 3 years old!) which inspired this post on InDecatur.
http://airbornecombatengineer.typepad.com/in_decatur/2007/11/why-is-nelson-f.html
To summerize, Nelson’s Ferry used to be a crossing on the Chattahoochee. We were never able to determine why there would be a street in Decatur with that name though.
My non-educated guess would be that it was the Decatur end of a road that ended at Nelson’s Ferry, many miles away. Similar to Fayetteville Road in Oakhurst, which was named such because that’s where it headed.
Also, most of you probably know this, but Decatur itself was sited at the confluence of two old Indian trails, one that went east-west from Sandtown to Stone Mountain (roughly along the current rail line) and north-south along the Clairemont-McDonough corridor (McDonough being another road named after it’s destination). If my hunch above is correct, it’s possible that Nelson Ferry is also on such a trail.
Dave posited that theory too TeeRuss. And I believe at one point I saw a map that showed Nelson Ferry as a road going west through the Venetian Pool, now that I think about it. I need to find that sucker again. It may have been that massive, turn of the 20th century Atlanta map that the History Center sells for $80. It didn’t go all the way to the Hooch, but it’s very interesting that Nelson Ferry may have been the main road toward Atlanta prior to Ponce being developed around 1910.
That’s really interesting that a relatively short, slow-paced local street like Nelson Ferry was once an important connection to the Chattahoochee. I assumed that the “ferry” refered to some nearer and more minor body of water. Hard to imagine how the road went through the Venetian Pool area because there’s a steep dip in the landscape there. And now that road is totally overshadowed by Coventry to the north or Ponce to the south.
I know. That’s what makes it so interesting! I need to go back and look at that map again when I get a moment.
The other Ponce Heights neighborhood streets were actually put in during the ’20s as an extension of Druid Hills. However, the full-fledged development didn’t happen until the late 1930s. That’s why there are some random 1920’s bungalows and American Square Houses amongst all the late 30s Tudor and Colonial American Small Houses.
I meant “Intown neighborhoods,…..” or “Inside the perimeter neighborhoods…..”
I was always told the changing street names were to keep up the racial divide. It kept white people from living on the same street as black people if the name changed! I hope thats not true though cause its pretty terrible.
There’s a living example of that which you may pass often. Monroe Drive is on the north side of Ponce, Boulevard is on the south.
Plus Briarcliff north of Ponce, Moreland south of Ponce.
And correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t Hosea Williams previously also Boulevard but running E-W until it intersected Boulevard/Monroe?
That used to be my favorite.
Correct, but it was Boulevard Avenue, not plain Boulevard.
Boulevard Drive, actually. And it still exists for a short stretch on the west side of Moreland.
You’re right, it’s Drive, not Avenue.
These are plausible examples but are they historically valid? When did the dual names for these single streets develop? I thought the south of Ponce neighborhoods between Moreland and Boulevard were fairly middle class and blue collar white neighborhoods until around the 1960s/1970s when they suffered white flight, the hippie invasion, and general decline. Weren’t Moreland and Boulevard the names of those streets way before then? I don’t know but I didn’t think they were recent names.
South of Ponce in the Midtown area has largely historically African-American for quite some time. The name change from Monroe to Boulevard was done specifically because of that.
I believe that explains the change in street name at Ponce de Leon of Boulevard to Monroe Drive and Parkway to Charles Allen Drive.
Ralph McGill Boulevard, named after the progressive editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, was formerly Forrest Avenue. That was named for Nathan Beford Forrest, a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army where he was infamously known for permitting the slaughter of captured African-American Union troops. After the war, Forrest was instrumental in the development of the Klan. So there is quite a bit of racial history behind many of Atlanta’s streets’ names.
Seems par for the course in the ATL.
Leaves out mention of the railroad. The beginnings of Atlanta were rooted in the railroad. And look at Decatur Street–it parallels the railroad tracks for most of its distance. When I used to take Decatur Street to work downtown, I liked the fact that the presence of the tracks make it impossible for too many cross streets to be developed and interfere with quick travel via Decatur Street.
The complexity of naming probably comes from the multiple jurisdictions, and relatively fast growth and infrastructure development.
Trolleys too. East Lake Road, Edgewood Ave, etc, were all built primarily for the trolleys. (Note that these roads have very gradual turns to accommodate the trolley)
Oakview is an excellent example of trolley-created roads that is very nearby. The trolley ran in the median and ended at Ansley St behind Agnes Scott. Driving out 2nd Ave toward Memorial, you cross over Cottage Grove Ave on a bridge. Cottage Grove was built for the same reason.
I think a lot of east coast cities have a jumbled street pattern, especially when compared to central/west coast cities with a more navigable grid pattern. I suspect that a lot of this is due to when a lot of the streets came into use. When you got around by horse, you probably were not to concerned about straight line travel for twenty miles, or whether the road retained the same name. Also, local entities named their streets, thus Roswell Rd in Atlanta morphs into Atlanta Rd in Roswell.
The Boulevard/Monroe switch is, indeed, a by-product of white flight 60 or so years ago. This is well documented in newspaper clips, history books, etc.– and many black folks still remember that bitterly. So are some others (mainly on the south and west sides, I think). But Moreland/Briarcliff, Decataur-DeKalb and many others just happened. My GUESS is that Briarcliff was the rural extension of Moreland long ago — the place where the straight-line, urban Moreland became the meandering, rural Briarcliff when Va-Highlands was just beginning to urbanize around 1890-1900. Same as the reason Peachtree Street becomes Peachtree Road — 120 years ago, development ended around Brookwood Station, and as things grew farther out they just never got around to making the urban end “Street.”
It’s Scarlett O’Hara’s fault.
Well, don’t go to Europe if this is a problem! In many old places there, streets may keep the same name for only 3-4 blocks. But IMO, the quality of the place far exceeds the problems of the erratic street names. If Atlanta had streets like Rome, London, or Paris, nobody would worry about inconsistent naming.
That’s a really interesting point. If Atlanta had streets like Paris, I bet the reaction to the complexity of the street names would probably morph from annoyance to pride in knowing the intricacies of your city.
I venture to day that’s the case for a lot of us in the first place–not annoyance but, as you say, pride in the intricacies of our city. I remember thinking, during a sojourn of several years in the Midwest when I was much younger, how boring it was to have everything laid out on a predictable grid. Easy for strangers, maybe, but not very interesting. Except Minneapolis, where they use numbers to designate both the avenues and the streets. I’d never heard of doing that, and went around in circles for quite a while, thinking I’d found the rabbit hole at last.