Comments on: Monday Map Madness!

By: Peter in Decatur

Peter in Decatur — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 16:03:57 +0000

This map on Wikipedia shows the line you referenced; as you can see, it ended where E Lake Dr meets Ponce.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Atlanta_streetcars_1924.jpg

Have you ever noticed the small wooden structure on the side of the road at that intersection? That was a streetcar stop and probably marked the end of the line.

In addition to TinMan’s link, the following site provides a detailed history, along with many amazing photos. There’s a photo of the streetcar stop about 3/4 of the way down the page. I couldn’t link directly to the photo, but just search for “Old trolley waiting station on Ponce de Leon Avenue, built in 1923.”

http://railga.com/oddend/streetrail/atlantastr.html

By: Bub

Bub — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 01:03:30 +0000

Interestingly, they also maintain the “Clairemont” vs. “Clairmont” spellings as we do today.

By: dsw

dsw — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 21:36:45 +0000

This is absolutely fascinating. You can really see why Chris Leinberger once said that Atlanta is one of the fastest growing human settlements in the history of the world in terms of the amount of acres being consumed by its growing population.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 21:03:41 +0000

Interesting. Especially the fact that, in many areas of the city, it appears we had far less tree canopy coverage than we have today.

I know we’re presently in some level of canopy decline from whatever our record high was but I wonder what percentage is reflected in, say, this photograph here. That is, what was considered normal during another period in Decatur’s history when development was in full force? Perhaps our present 40 or 45% fares well by comparison.

By: WP

WP — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 20:54:13 +0000

Thank you Jack, this can be a entire day killer if I don’t watch out. The Decatur bookmark you sent is almost the same as the aerial photograph from 1949, very helpful for figuring out the street names. Will repost for anyone interested that might have missed it:

http://dlgcsm.galib.uga.edu/StyleServer/calcrgn?browser=ns&cat=gaph&wid=740&hei=740&style=default/gaph_lg.xsl&item=/dekalb/1949/ati-2f-183.sid#

I keep wishing it had a few more clicks of resolution so I could take a better look at what was going on in my backyard in december 1949.