Back on her Decatur horse, Pecanne Log says that the city “was home to the original NIMBYs”.  Christa has unearthed a 1939 AJC article where the writer unearthed a few odd facts from “The Inventory of County Archives – DeKalb” about Decatur from an even earlier time.

Among them, a 1860 plan to build a wall on the west side of Decatur to keep “that offensive, boisterous and growing community of Atlanta on its western boundaries”, and a little ditty that Decatur residents used to recite as a rallying cry against laying track for the “dirty” railroads within the city limits.

Christa also references the oft-cited rumor that Decatur residents actually turned down an offer to become the “terminus” station for the coming rail line, but I’ve always heard conflicting reports as to whether this is in fact true.  Most state this as fact – or at least accepted rumor – but a couple doubting Thomases have mentioned to me that there’s actually no proof of such an offer being made (and rejected) and that Atlanta (aka Marthasville, aka Thrasherville, aka Terminus) is actually a more logical spot for a number of railroads as that’s where many of them intersect.

Perhaps the aforementioned aversion to having track inside the city limits was expanded upon to come up with this revised history, which puts Decatur in a slightly more favorable light?  I dunno.  It sure would be interesting to look at “The Inventory of County Archives” though!