Georgia Natural Wonder #253 - Olmsted Linear Parks - DeKalb County (Part 3)

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #253 - Olmstead Linear Parks

About Druid Hills & Olmsted Linear Park

"The root of all my good work is an early respect for regard and enjoyment of scenery... and extraordinary opportunities for cultivating susceptibility to the power of scenery."

Frederick Law Olmsted 1883



My Scrolling Nugget today is from a tremendous Folk Rock Band, The Trees.



Olmsted Network

From the Olmsted Network web site, In 1890, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. traveled by train, streetcar and then horseback from Asheville, where he was working on Biltmore, to Atlanta, where he would design the “ideal residential suburb” for developer Joel Hurt who had amassed 1,400 acres of woodland and scrub farmland.



Olmsted’s plan envisioned a residential community of spacious lots along curvilinear streets, with a linear park and parkway as the centerpiece of the design. The Olmsted Brothers continued the project after the senior Olmsted’s retirement and drew up a planting plan for the park as well as the final 1905 graphic plan.



It was not until 1908 when the project was sold to the Druid Hills Corporation that lots began to be sold and houses built. Early residents included Asa Candler, Coca-Cola magnate and head of the Druid Hills Corporation, along with successful businessmen, professionals, and seven prominent Atlanta architects who built their own homes in the new suburb and designed homes for others.



The years after World War II brought changes that threatened the integrity of the Olmsted plan.  The greatest threat was a proposed roadway that engulfed the neighborhood in a decade-long fight marked by protests, arrests and court cases. (Interstate 78)


The National Association for Olmsted Parks – along with the Druid Hills Civic Association and the National Trust for Historic Preservation—opposed the road in a long but ultimately successful campaign.  A master plan for the linear park was completed and the Olmsted Linear Park Alliance emerged from that plan as the park conservancy.



Today, Olmsted Linear Park Alliance and the Druid Hills Civic Association continue as stewards of Druid Hills and its linear park. The residential community and its linear park are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1975) and have local protection as designated historic districts.

Olmsted Linear Park Alliance

From the Olmsted Linear Park Alliance web site, Olmsted Linear Park is a 45-acre greenspace and old-growth forest that meanders along Ponce de Leon Avenue from the intersection of Briarcliff Road and Moreland Avenue to the east end of N. Ponce de Leon near Decatur. The Druid Hills neighborhood and the park were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the late 1890’s.  



The park consists of six picturesque segments that is home to a lush tree canopy and vibrant wildlife habitat. The Olmsted Linear Park Alliance is the charitable nonprofit organization that oversees the management and preservation of the park.

The Olmsted Legacy

In 1890 Atlanta businessman Joel Hurt engaged Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., to prepare a plan for developing the area now known as Druid Hills. Olmsted was recognized as the nation’s preeminent designer of parks and public open spaces. His work included Central Park in New York City, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the Emerald Necklace of Boston, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville and the nation’s Capitol Grounds.



The Olmsted firm submitted a preliminary plan to Hurt in 1893 in which the six-segment Linear Park was first laid out. The firm completed the final plan in 1905, two years after the death of Olmsted, and remained involved with the work until 1908, when the property was acquired by the Druid Hills Corporation. The area was then developed and the Park completed under the leadership of Coca-Cola magnate Asa G. Candler.



The design of Druid Hills soon became the standard by which other Atlanta developments were measured. The curving stretches of its landmark greenspace have delighted generations of area residents and the thousands of persons who come and go along Ponce de Leon Avenue every day.

A Park is Saved

In August 1995, local residents and non-profit organizations joined forces to come up with a strategy to stabilize and rehabilitate the Olmsted Linear Park. The planning process, led by the Olmsted Parks Society of Atlanta, Park Pride, the Druid Hills Garden Club and the Druid Hills Civic Association, incorporated the interests of residents, garden clubs, park advocates and preservationists. The Olmsted Linear Park Master Plan was developed with counsel from public officials and from local and national consultants, including historian Charles Beveridge, editor of the Olmsted Papers.



The major stakeholders of the park, The City of Atlanta, DeKalb County Recreation, Parks and Cultural Affairs and the Fernbank Musuem of Natural History, adopted a Master Plan in 1997 to establish the Olmsted Linear Park Alliance (OLPA), rehabilitate the park and provide for the park’s ongoing maintenance.



The OLPA Board of Directors include representatives from the Druid Hills community, the Neighborhood Planning Unit and the Olmsted Parks Society of Atlanta along with ex-officio representatives from the City of Atlanta, DeKalb County and Fernbank. OLPA, a non-profit organization, has undertaken the fundraising, restoration and maintenance activities recommended by the Master Plan.



All six park segments have been rehabilitated, work that has included the addition of nearly 6,000 linear feet of paths and the installation of 2,600 new trees and shrubs. The most expensive aspect of the restoration was the burial of utility lines. Approximately 11 miles of conduit and cable lie beneath the period lampposts that ring the park.

Visit Our Parks Experience Nature

Even before the paths in the restored Olmsted Linear Park were completed, they attracted walkers and joggers. 



Pathways were integral to the parks Olmsted created. Routes were carefully devised to allow the visitor to enjoy the most scenic vistas, the bend in the path repeating the curve of the landscape.

Springdale

Springdale is the westernmost segment, the gateway to the Linear Park from Atlanta.



Visitors encounter a green knoll and a mature stand of oaks, followed by a sweeping pastoral dell.



Located along the intersection of Ponce de Leon Avenue and Moreland Avenue.

Virgilee

Virgilee is the only segment of the Olmsted Linear Park which is named for an individual.



The names of all other segments of the park reference natural features found in them.



Virgilee was Joel Hurt’s daughter; this park is her memorial.



Hurt was the developer who initially conceived the plan for Druid Hills.



Like Springdale, Virgilee has a wide and grassy open space in the central portion, with groves of trees, plants, and pathways on its periphery.

Oak Grove

Oak Grove does contain an oak grove but is essentially a pastoral park which extends the design of the first two segments. 



For many years, it was maintained by the Druid Hills Garden Club.



Oak Grove was formerly known as Brightwood. 



Named for its numerous oak trees.



Oak Grove follows the design of the first two park segments, but with more greenery.

Shadyside

Shadyside is named for the heavily wooded section on the southern side of its western end.



This section of the park is mainly pastoral but has picturesque elements.



During the 1930s, some additional elements were added to this park, which included a well,



waterfall, pool, and a bridge.



Even though these were not in keeping with Olmsted’s design, they have been nonetheless preserved because of their historical significance.



Despite being located right on Ponce, the hum of car traffic is oddly peaceful blended with the familiar bird and insect soundtrack of the summer.

Dellwood

Dellwood is named for the natural depression at its eastern end—a dell.

 

It is a continuation of the pastoral style—open space with scattered groups of trees.



It is graced with some particularly fine large trees.



Dellwood is located at the intersection of Clifton Road and Ponce De Leon Avenue.   



Not far from the Druid Hills Country Club and Fernbank Museum of Natural History.

Deepdene

Deepdene, the largest segment, forms the eastern end of the Linear Park.

 
Note, sign includes elder Olmsted in 1890 to his son's in 1905.

Unlike the five pastoral segments, it is a wooded tract with a stream winding through its 22 acres and a topography that ranges from steep slopes to a flat meadow.



As Olmsted, Sr., envisioned, the parkway encircles the wooded ravine, effectively preserving it.



Traversed by curvilinear footpaths, the park encompasses rugged topography and a remnant old growth Piedmont Forest.



This woodland, characterized by steep sides that slope towards a tributary of the Peavine Creek.



From All Trails Reviews: Deepdene was a pleasant little hike. We enjoyed all of the stone stepping over the creeks and cute medieval bridges along the way.



Pretty close to the main road (Ponce), but it’s a quaint walk with great info on the history of the park and the forest that’s in it.



This is a gorgeous escape in Atlanta even though you can hear road traffic.



Olmsted Network Again - Spotlight on… Druid Hills and Olmsted Linear Park

From the Olmsted Network web site, Druid Hills, now one of Atlanta’s historic in-town neighborhoods, is Frederick Law Olmsted’s “last suburb.”  Three men made Druid Hills happen.  Joel Hurt, one of Atlanta’s trolley kings and an enlightened developer, brought Mr. Olmsted to Atlanta in 1890 to design an “ideal residential suburb.”  Working at the time at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, Frederick Law Olmsted traveled by train, streetcar, and then on horseback to see the 1400 acres of woodland and scrub farmland that Hurt had amassed.  By 1893,  Hurt had a conceptual plan.  A linear park and parkway formed the centerpiece of the design for a residential community of spacious lots with generous setbacks along curvilinear streets.  A trolley running on a single track along the edge of the park connected the subdivision to the city. 



It took another prominent Atlanta businessman to launch the development of the plan after Hurt sold his Druid Hills project to the Druid Hills Corporation headed by Coca-Cola magnate Asa Candler for a record half-million dollars.  By this time, Olmsted had retired (1895) and his sons were carrying on the firm as the Olmsted Brothers.  John Charles Olmsted was the brother on the ground in Atlanta overseeing the project, laying out the parkway and park segments and drawing up planting plans, and producing the famous 1905 Plan.


Trolley Stop still there.

Lots began to be sold and houses were built after the 1908 sale.  Prominent citizens, mostly businessmen and professionals and their families moved to the new “suburb,” several miles from Inman Park,  Atlanta’s “first suburb” developed by Hurt in the 1880s where he built his own home and ran a trolley line to his office downtown.  All of Asa Candler’s children built homes in Druid Hills as did their father.  A number of homes were “built by Coca-Cola”  including two houses said to be wedding presents.  Seven of Atlanta’s most prominent architects of the early 20th century built their own homes here in addition to designing homes for clients.  Characterized by a range of architectural styles, particularly Revival styles of Classical (the 1893 Columbian Exposition’s influence) and Colonial and Mediterranean, Druid Hills offers an eclectic array sometimes within the design of a single house.  What is consistent is the scale, mass, and proportion of the homes and their relation to the street and to each other.  It is the spatial relations established by the Olmsted plan/design that are the focus of the protection afforded by both the City of Atlanta and DeKalb County historic preservation ordinances sought and gained by the Druid Hills Civic Association beginning in the 1970s with the National Register listing of the Druid Hills Parks & Parkways followed quickly by the entire “suburb.”



While changes occurred before World War II like smaller lots in the northern section where Emory University established an Atlanta campus with the gift of land and a (famous) million dollar check from Asa Candler and the development of smaller subdivisions flowing from the Olmsted design, more dramatic change occurred in the years following the war.  The trolley disappeared, the spacious parkway was turned into a four-lane state highway, the mansions along the main parkway became too much for single-family use and a major threat to the very existence of Druid Hills arrived in the form of a road that would link the city to its burgeoning eastern suburbs.  The first iteration of this threat in the 1970s was squelched by the then-governor. The second iteration – re-surfacing in the 1980s as a “parkway” (with Interstate highway specifications) having strong local governmental support– put Druid Hills and almost all the in-town neighborhoods between Druid Hills and downtown into a protracted decade-long fight, complete with protests, arrests, court cases, and a change of mayors.  The Olmsted Parks Society was formed with its initial focus on raising awareness of the man who designed Druid Hills and what a valuable place Druid Hills was.  The Road would have meant the beginning of the end, cutting through the middle of the linear park and emptying onto the parkway.  The National Association for Olmsted Parks (NAOP) was a lifeline, a national voice for what being part of the Olmsted legacy meant.  The National Trust stepped up as well.  The election of a new mayor and subsequent successful mediation ended The Road Fight.  Then, in preparation for the 1996 Olympics, the parkway became one of the Garden Club of Georgia’s “Pathways of Gold” paving the way for a master plan for restoration and rehabilitation of the Druid Hills linear park to be called Olmsted Linear Park and looked after by a newly-created Olmsted Linear Park Alliance (OLPA).



Both the Druid Hills Civic Association and OLPA are members of NAOP.

Explore Atlanta

Frederick Law Olmsted Sr.

Frederick Law Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut, a member of the eighth generation of his family to live in that city. His mother died when he was four, and from the age of seven he received his schooling mostly from ministers in outlying towns, with whom he lived. His father, a successful dry-goods merchant, was a lover of scenery, and much of Olmsted's vacation time was spent with his family on "tours in search of the picturesque" through northern New England and upstate New York. As he was about to enter Yale College in 1837, Olmsted suffered severe sumac poisoning, which weakened his eyes and kept him from the usual course of studies.

Olmsted's Yale classmates.

He spent the next twenty years gathering experiences and skills from a variety of endeavors that he eventually utilized in creating the profession of landscape architecture. He worked in a New York dry-goods store and took a year-long voyage in the China Trade. He studied surveying and engineering, chemistry, and scientific farming, and ran a farm on Staten Island from 1848 to 1855. In 1850 he and two friends took a six-month walking tour of Europe and the British Isles, during which he saw numerous parks and private estates, as well as scenic countryside. In 1852 he published his first book, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England. That December he began the first of two journeys through the slave-holding south as a reporter for the New York Times. Between 1856 and 1860 he published three volumes of travel accounts and social analysis of the South. During this period he used his literary activities to oppose the westward expansion of slavery and to argue for the abolition of slavery by the southern states. From 1855 to 1857 he was partner in a publishing firm and managing editor of Putnam's Monthly Magazine, a leading journal of literature and political commentary. He spent six months of this time living in London with considerable travel on the Continent, and in the process visited many public parks.

Olmsted In 1850.

In the fall of 1857, Olmsted's literary connections enabled him to secure the position of superintendent of Central Park in New York City. The following March, he and Calvert Vaux won the design competition for the park. During the next seven years he was primarily an administrator in charge of major undertakings: first (1859-1861) as architect-in-chief of Central Park, in charge of construction of the park; then (1861–1863) as director of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, charged with overseeing the health and camp sanitation of all the volunteer soldiers of the Union Army and with creating a national system of medical supply for those troops; and finally (1863-1865) as manager of the Mariposa Estate, a vast gold-mining complex in California.


Mariposa Grove.

In 1865, Olmsted returned to New York to join Vaux in completing their work on Central Park and designing Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Over the next thirty years, ending with his retirement in 1895, Olmsted created examples of the many kinds of designs by which the profession of landscape architecture (a term he and Vaux first used) could improve the quality of life in America. 


Central Park Images.

These included the large urban park, devoted primarily to the experience of scenery and designed so as to counteract the artificiality of the city and the stress of urban life; the "parkway," a wide urban greenway carrying several different modes of transportation (most important a smooth-surfaced drive reserved for private carriages) which connected parks and extended the benefits of public greenspace throughout the city; the park system, offering a wide range of public recreation facilities for all residents in a city; the scenic reservation, protecting areas of special scenic beauty from destruction and commercial exploitation; the residential suburb, separating place of work from place of residence and devoted to creating a sense of community and a setting for domestic life; the grounds of the private residence, where gardening could develop both the aesthetic awareness and the individuality of its occupants, and containing numerous "attractive open-air apartments" that permitted household activities to be moved outdoors; the campuses of residential institutions, where a domestic scale for the buildings would provide a training ground for civilized life; and the grounds of government buildings, where the function of the buildings would be made more efficient and their dignity of appearance increase by careful planning. In each of these categories, Olmsted developed a distinctive design approach that showed the comprehensiveness of his vision, his uniqueness of conception that he brought to each commission, and the imagination with which he dealt with even the smallest details.

PRINCIPAL PROJECTS

His principal projects in each category are:

Scenic Reservations

Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove (1865) and Niagara Reservation (1887).


Yosemite Valley.

Major Urban Parks

Central Park (1858); Prospect Park (1866); Delaware Park, Buffalo (1869); South Park (later Washington and Jackson Parks and Midway Plaisance), Chicago (1871); Belle Isle, Detroit (1881); Mount Royal, Montreal (1877); Franklin Park, Boston (1885); Genesee Valley Park, Rochester, New York (1890); Cherokee Park, Louisville (1891). Also notable were Riverside Park (1875) and Morningside Park (1873 and 1887) in New York and Fort Greene Park (1868) in Brooklyn. In smaller cities, Walnut Hill Park in New Britain, Connecticut (1870); South (now Kennedy) Park in Fall River, Massachusetts (1871); Beardsley Park in Bridgeport, Connecticut (1884); Downing Park in Newburgh, New York (1887), and Cadwalader Park, Trenton, New Jersey (1891).


Park In Fall River - Delaware Park - Genesee Valley Park.

Parkways

Eastern and Ocean parkways, Brooklyn (1868); Humboldt and Lincoln, Bidwell and Chapin Parkways, Buffalo (1870); Drexel Boulevard and Martin Luther King Drive, Chicago (1871); the "Emerald Necklace" (1881 on), Beacon Street, and Commonwealth Avenue extension (1886) in Boston; and Southern Parkway, Louisville (1892).



Park Systems

Buffalo-Delaware Park, The Front, The Parade, South Park and Cazenovia Park, and connecting parkways. Boston-the "Emerald Necklace": Charlesbank, Back Bay Fens, Riverway, Leverett Park, Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum, Franklin Park, and Marine Park, and connecting parkways. Rochester-Genesee Valley, Highland, and Seneca Parks and several city squares. Louisville-Shawnee, Cherokee, and Iroquois Parks, Southern Parkways and several small city parks and squares.

 
Jamaica Pond and Emerald Necklace.

Residential Communities

Riverside, Illinois (1869); Sudbrook, Maryland (1889); Druid Hills, Atlanta (1893).


Druid Hills and an older Olmsted.

Residential Campuses

Stanford University (1886); Lawrenceville School (1884); Buffalo State Hospital for the Insane (1875); Hartford Retreat (1860); Bloomingdale Asylum, White Plains, New York (1892).


Stanford.

Government Buildings

U.S. Capitol grounds and terraces (1874); Connecticut State House (1878).


Country Estates

Olmsted designed a number of large estates, and with some of these he introduced projects with public significance, particularly scientific forestry and arboretums. The outstanding examples are Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, and Moraine Farm in Beverly, Massachusetts.

 
Biltmore and Moraine Farm.

Dekalb County (Part 3)

We continue  our tangent on DeKalb County and we continue explorations of the 53 National Register of Historic Places in the County.

National Register of Historic Places (Continued)

We insert this Historic Place out of alphabetical order as it pertains to our Wonder in this post.

Druid Hills Parks and Parkways Historic District

The Druid Hills Parks and Parkways district included Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Italian Renaissance Revival architecture in buildings along both sides of Ponce de Leon Avenue between Briarcliff Road and the Seaboard Coast Line RR tracks. 


Had three Insurance Claims this bridge, trucks running into bridge, Need to stay in middle lanes in big truck. Never did pay anyone for damage because it was all preexisting and superficial.

This was a 250-acre area that included a total of eight contributing buildings and one other contributing structure. The 1979 expanded listing included an area of 1,300 acres including Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals, Classical Revival, and Bungalow/Craftsman architecture.



Druid Hills Parks and Parkways are important as the only example in Atlanta and one of a few in the southeast of the work of the eminent landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted , Sr. Although Olmsted Brothers, sons and successors to the senior Olmsted, drew the final plans for the suburb after Olmsted's death in 1903, the senior Olmsted had provided the preliminary plan on which the suburb's design is based.



This area of Druid Hills which sets the tone for the entire surrounding residential neighborhood is a clear expression of Olmsted's design concepts for parks, parkways and residential areas. It is therefore an important Atlanta example of landscape architecture whose potential contribution to the physical environment of this area of the city in which the population density is increasing is highly significant.



Kirkwood Land Company and it's business manager, Joel Hurt had originally proposed to extend Ponce de Leon Avenue into his company lands in a straight line as he had previously done with Edgewood Avenue into Inman Park, but Olmsted convinced him that it would be more natural and economical to allow the topography to determine the boulevard's route.



Ponce de Leon Avenue, however, and the linear parkland along its picturesque route from Briarcliff Road on the west to the Seaboard Coast Line railroad tracks on the east, were developed from the Olmsted plans. The gently curved roadway carries out the senior Olmsted's belief that a natural, informal course provides a welcome contrast to the more rigid rectilinear gridiron pattern of adjacent building shapes and areas. The open spaces, from Springdale Park with its swings, slides and recreational purposes, through Shady Side and others where open meadows are bordered by clumps of trees and foliage in a typical Olmsted pattern, to Deepdene Park which is a seemingly impenetrable forest, represent basic Olmsted landscape concepts. The landscaped environment and roadway pattern clearly distinguishes the Druid Hills area from the section of the city to the west.


8 structures, there were certainly more and they were included in later 1979 Druid Hills National Historic Places Designation.

Many older residential neighborhoods in Atlanta suggest the influence of Frederick Law Olmsted in their curving streets, occasional park spaces and landscaped lots. It is essential that the site and form of his work in the Druid Hills section of the city, which exerted influence on some of these areas, be preserved.



Now we move back to alphabetical order on the National Historic Places with ....

Decatur Cemetery



The Decatur Cemetery is a historic graveyard within the city of Decatur, Georgia, United States.

History

The Decatur Cemetery is the oldest burial ground in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and is believed to have been used even before Decatur's 1823 incorporation.



In 1832, an act by the local legislature created “Commissioners for the Decatur Burial Ground.” Numerous Civil War veterans were buried in the Decatur Cemetery, mostly in the 8-acre area now referred to as "The Old Cemetery". A wooden well house, built in 1881 with lattice and shingle details, has been restored by the Friends of Decatur Cemetery. The well hole has been sealed over with concrete for safety reasons and the house is now used as a gazebo.

Today

The Decatur Cemetery has expanded to 54 acres and contains well over 20,000 graves.



A special section exists for burial of cremated remains; the cemetery also contains a pond stocked with fish. 



This pond is also home to swans, ducks and turtles, and is a stopping place for Canada geese on migration.

 

The cemetery is bordered by a forest of several acres, which borders the Glennwood Estates neighborhood.

Features

The forested ravine east of the cemetery includes a newly completed pedestrian path which winds over a tributary of Peachtree Creek. 



A small waterfall is just south of the southern bridge.



At the southeast corner of the cemetery there is a grove of giant bamboo, some with trunks over 20 cm in diameter. A short path leads through this grove to the end of the Ponce de Leon Court Historic District.



Notable graves

Lt. Col. Robert Augustus Alston (1832-1879); state legislator and journalist, owner of Meadow Nook.



Emily Verdery Battey (1826—1912); journalist.


Beverly Claire Bottoms killed by car on her bike at end of driveway. Dad made monument from photo of her late night reading.



Col. Milton A. Candler (1837–1909); state senator and U.S. Congressman.



Davis Chambers, a Decatur High student who died in a 1915 Football game. The sport was suspended until 1921.



Dr Thomas Holley Chivers (1806–1858); physician and poet.



Rev. William Henry Clarke (1804-1872) minister at Wesley Chapel Methodist Church, and representative for DeKalb County in the Georgia House of Representatives.



Mary Ann Harris Gay (1829–1918); author of Life in Dixie During the War.



William S. Howard (1875 – August 1, 1953) U.S. Congressman.



Mary Gregory Jewett (1908 – January 16, 1976), historian and journalist.



Rev. Hovie Lister (1926-2001) Gospel musician The Statesmen Quartet.



Henry Walter Maier Longest-serving mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, holding office from 1960 to 1988.



Charles Murphey (1799–1861); U.S. Congressman and a delegate to the Georgia Secession Convention.



Robert Ramspeck (1890-1972) U.S. Congressman.



Col. George Washington Scott (1829–1903); founder of Agnes Scott College.



Andrew Sledd (1870–1939); founding president of the modern University of Florida, and Emory University professor. Sledd Affair.



Leslie Jasper Steele (1868–1929) Mayor of Decatur, U.S. Congressman.



Benjamin F. Swanton (1807–1890) owner of the historic Swanton House.



Leila Ross Wilburn (1885–1967) pioneering woman architect.



Decatur Downtown Historic District



Prior to European settlement, the Decatur area was largely forested (a remnant of old-growth forest near Decatur is preserved as Fernbank Forest). Decatur was established at the intersection of two Native American trails: the Sandtown, which led east from the Chattahoochee River at Utoy Creek, and the Shallowford, which follows today's Clairmont Road, and eventually crossed near Roswell. A site for the DeKalb County courthouse was designated in 1822 in what would become downtown Decatur; the city of Decatur was incorporated on December 10, 1823. It was named for United States Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur.


Depiction of first Courthouse.

The first settler in the area were farmers or skilled tradesmen of English, Scottish and Irish descent.


4th Courthouse burned.

American Civil WarDuring the American Civil War, Decatur became a strategic site in Sherman's Atlanta Campaign. In July 1864, Major-General James McPherson occupied the town to cut off the Confederates' supply line from Augusta. On July 22, during the Battle of Atlanta, Confederate cavalry under Major-General Joseph Wheeler attacked McPherson's supply wagons and the Union troops left to defend the wagons. 


A historical marker at the old courthouse marks the site of this skirmish.

20th century

In the second half of the twentieth century the metropolitan area of Atlanta expanded into unincorporated DeKalb County, eventually surrounding two sides of the town of Decatur.



Concurrently many citizens fled the area to more distant suburbs. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed dramatic drops in property values.

 
Confederate Memorial gone. Emory students roll a giant ball through Decatur.

However, more recently the city has regained economic vigor,



partially thanks to several long-term downtown development plans that have come to fruition,

 

making Decatur a trendy small mixed-use district with easy transit to downtown Atlanta. 



Over the past twenty years, it has gained a local and national reputation as a progressive city with a high level of citizen involvement.

Decatur Heights-Glennwood Estates-Sycamore Street Historic District

The Decatur Heights-Glennwood Estates-Sycamore Street Historic District is a relatively large, architecturally diverse, residential area northeast of downtown Decatur. It was developed in stages based on expansion from the core of the city beginning in the 1870s, followed by a succession of various plats in the early decades of the 20th century. The plats were subdivisions of large tracts of farmland held by five or six owners. The general character of the district is single-family residential neighborhoods with mature trees, informal landscaping, and a mixture of rectilinear and curvilinear streets, some with stone retaining walls and concrete sidewalks.



The oldest and largest houses are along the southern boundary on Sycamore Street, with a few good examples of late 19th - century styles, such as Queen Anne. 



Most development occurred after 1910, including good examples of Neoclassical Revival, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman styles. 



The English Vernacular Revival style is predominant in the Glennwood Estates section, where streets tend to curve around the hilly topography.



The district exhibits its architectural and historical significance through the numerous intact historic buildings that remain, reflecting the housing diversity of approximately nine decades. 



While there has been some recent demolition and new construction, the majority of buildings retain enough integrity of design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association to convey the significance of the overall ensemble

Decatur Waterworks

The Decatur Waterworks was a facility that obtained drinking water for the city of Decatur, Georgia, from the local Peachtree Creek and Burnt Fork Creek. Completed in 1907 and abandoned since the 1940s, the Waterworks have fallen into disrepair and are covered with graffiti. The Decatur Waterworks are in Mason Mill Park, near the city of Decatur.



Historical designation

On March 15, 2006, the Decatur Waterworks was added to the National Register of Historic Places. 



It was due to its former industrial significance as a water works, its political importance as Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, and its use as a public park.

History of the Decatur Water Works

Near Decatur Georgia, before the Civil War, in the 1850s, Ezekiel Mason built a flour mill on the bank of Burnt Fork Creek near where it flows into the south fork of Peachtree Creek. This is the mill from which Mason Mill Road and Mason Mill Park derive their names. After the deaths of Mr. Mason and his wife in the late 19th century the land was transferred to J. A. Mason, relationship unknown. The provenance of the property becomes unclear at that point as the DeKalb Historical Society notes show that the J. A. Mason sold the property to the City of Decatur, but Decatur City Council Minutes refer to the property as the "Tallery property", and an option was exercised with C. H. Talley for the purchase of land in October 1906. In any case, records show that a waterworks construction project was completed on the property by December 1907.



By 1939, the Decatur Water Works consisted of two aeration and solid removal tanks. 

 

There were two storage tanks, an office building and two dams, one dam on South Peachtree Creek and one on Burnt Fork Creek. The remains of all of these structures can still be seen today and are often referred as ‘the old Decatur Water Works’.



The Decatur Water Works supplied water to the city until the 1940s. Its use as a public park began in the 1930s when a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project built a number of recreational amenities on the site. These amenities included granite benches, cooking grills, tables and a stone bridge over Burnt Fork Creek. These things also can be seen today. 



The stone bridge is part of the new trail that has been recently constructed in the park. The WPA also built a stacked stone fountain that remains and can be seen very near the stone bridge.



By 1941 it was apparent the 1.8 million US gallons of water per day produced by the water works was no longer enough to satisfy the growing needs of Decatur. The property was leased to DeKalb County, which operated the water works and sold the water to Decatur. DeKalb used revenue from the facility to fund a county-wide treatment plant in the Dunwoody area that uses water from the Chattahoochee River. Initially called the Laurel Plant, it is now called the Scott Candler Plant after the county commissioner who led the development process.



During World War II the Decatur Water Works was used as the exclusive water supply for the Naval Air Station that is now Peachtree DeKalb Airport and an Army Hospital in the area. The property was declared off limits for civilian use and was not used for any recreational purpose or as a civilian water supply during the war. At the end of the war the water works land was returned to the City of Decatur and continued to be operated and maintained by the county as a backup for the new water system. The park area was not maintained and was not used by the public.



For a time the office building at the water works was used for storage by the county. In 1951 a bond issue to finance development of the land was voted down. The water works fell into disuse and disrepair. By the mid-1960s the lakes had begun to fill with silt and there were complaints of flooding from local residents who lived in the adjacent neighborhoods that were built in the 1950s and 1960s. In about 1965 the dams were dynamited and the reservoirs drained.Decatur Waterworks served the City of Decatur for nearly fifty years, first as a city water station, and later as a city park. The landscape created by the Decatur Waterworks is a good example of the relationship between human society and the natural world, shaped by the function that the facility served.

Present day

In 1988 the county worked with local resident groups to make a development plan for Mason Mill Park that included the water works land, but the plan was never funded.



In 2006 the Decatur Water Works was declared a historic site.



A second plan was developed in 2008 and, with partial funding from the PATH Foundation, is being implemented.

DeKalb Avenue-Clifton Road Archeological Site

Normally this is one of those ancient Indian sites that they don't want you digging around. The address is restricted and none of the digital files regarding historic designation have not been down loaded. 

HISTORIC - NON-ABORIGINAL
ECONOMICS
SOCIAL HISTORY
Periods Of Significance:
1900-1924
1875-1899
Significant Years:
1895
1910

Doesn't sound like Indian site, but this all I can get, No images.

Donaldson-Bannister House and Cemetery

The Donaldson-Bannister House and Cemetery, near Dunwoody, Georgia, is a historic property that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. The house has also been known as Chesnut House.



The listing included six contributing buildings, a contributing structure, and a contributing site, on 2.8 acres.


Barn.

The house was built c. 1870 for William J. Donaldson as a Plantation Plain-type building, and a rear ell was added in the 1880s. 



In 1935, the ell was changed considerably by owner Lois Patillo Bannister, who hired architect Francis Palmer Smith to implement changes consistent with then-popular 20th-century Colonial Revival style. 



Examples of Bannister's interior alterations include the addition of pedimented door surrounds, paneled cabinets, and elaborate moldings. 



The house's floor plan was expanded to 11 rooms and included the addition of new family living spaces, bedrooms, closets, and bathrooms.



The house itself is considered significant as an "excellent example of the thorough application of Colonial Revival-style elements". 


House had to be rebuilt after tornado 1998, a giant Oak fell on house.

The cemetery is also considered an "excellent example of a family cemetery" in rural agricultural landscape architecture.



Wow, 173 images and I have only covered 18 of the 53 National Register of Historic Places in DeKalb County. Good thing I have so many Natural Wonders in DeKalb County, because I still have to cover the Historical Markers, the Communities, and the Notable People. Today's Georgia Natural Wonder Gals are the models who always pose for Vogue magazine at Fredrick Law Olmsted's prize creation, Central Park in New York City.