Atlanta City Hall is the headquarters of the

City of Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County and extends into neighboring DeKalb County. With a population of 520,070 (2024 estimate) living within the city limits, Atlan ...

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 largest of the city's three commercial districts (Midtown Atlanta, Midtown and Buckhead being the others), it is the location of many corporate and region ...

. 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 (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

during the same time period. Located in South Downtown, 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 t ...

and the Fulton County Courthouse. The

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half of the 19th century ...

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 or grocer's shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a retail store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday US usage, however, "grocery store" is a synon ...

s), in 1853 mayor of Atlanta

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

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 construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

structure (with an additional two-story

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

) for the

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

as well as some

court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

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 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, Georgia, Baldwin County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. Founded in 1803 along the Oconee River, it served as the List of current and former capital cities in the ...

. It was

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

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 a ...

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 so ...

between Forsyth and Fairlie. Purchased from the

U.S. federal government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, execut ...

by Atlanta mayor

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 a ...

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 South Downtown 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 officer, general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), earning recognit ...

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, 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 Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. 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, Georgia, Atlanta, Decatur, Georgia, Decatur, Clarkston, Georgia, Clarkston, and Stone Mountain, Georgia. It was named for Ponce de Leon Springs (Atlanta), Po ...

in the

Old Fourth Ward The Old Fourth Ward, often abbreviated O4W, is an Intown Atlanta, intown neighborhood on the Eastside (Atlanta), eastside of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The neighborhood is best known as the location of the Martin Luther King Jr. National H ...

neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...

, northeast of downtown. The building formerly belonged to

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

. 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 Ponce City Market is a mixed-use development located in a former Sears catalogue facility in Atlanta, with national and local retail anchors, restaurants, a food hall, boutiques and offices, and residential units. It is located adjacent to the ...

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) 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