June 9, 2026 • 43 mins
OK, folks: yes, Ben, Noel and Max are well aware of Atlanta's bizarre habit of naming every other street 'Peachtree' something-or-other. But did you know this city also has multiple streets with completely different names depending on the neighborhood? The boys discover the answer, which is both ridiculous... and chilling.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. That's our Man of the Hour
super producer mister Max Williams given.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Up for Man of the two hours late, which is
my fault. That's not a nickname. That should go to you, Max,
that should go to me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I am never late to anything.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Have you guys ever seen me be late to anything?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Only you only once, and you were super weird about it, well,
at the very least, super apologetic.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
But I can't even recall the time you're talking about, Ben.
This is a me issue. I'm traveling. I was at
a place that was slightly unfamiliar or new to me,
and the internet crap the bed, and then I had
a hotel situation but it wasn't ready. So I do
come to y'all hat in hand from a coworking space.
So if y'all hear some New York types I having
meetings in the background, that's what's going on. But otherwise
(01:18):
it's pretty empty right now. But I'm knowl and you're Ben,
and you're champion and a scholar and a sport for
putting up with my shenanigans.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Ah, absolutely no sweat, zero perspiration, folks. That is indeed
the legendary mister Noel Brown. They do call me Ben
Bolin and the folks. We get on the road often
and we have shenanigans, and we're pretty upfront about it
when you know, Nol. There have been times I was
(01:46):
stranded in Japan, her Korea, and we kept the japandit.
I love it. Japan did. So. We are scattered across
the world often and one thing that always takes us
back home, all three of us, is a little town
called Atlanta. And Guys, I gotta tell you, there's this
(02:11):
old joke that really bothers a lot of us. When
tourists say it in Atlanta, they go, wow, every street
is named peach Tree something.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, they love to make that one. And they also
just love Hot Lanta.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Hotlanta.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And I don't know why it runs that's the wrong
way as locals, but it does. And I can't put
my finger on it. But the whole peachtree thing, there's
some truth to that, but also not to the degree
that people say, yeah, it feels like late late nineteen
(02:49):
eighties lazy stand up.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
You know, I went to Atlanta. I wanted to go
to Peach Tree. The cab driver said, which one? Anyway,
what's next the my airline food?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6 (03:03):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
By the way, it's speaking of peaches and George Georgia
Atlanta centric stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
We are known elsewhere in.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The country because there's a diner in Queens, New York,
where I'm staying that is called the Georgia Diner, and
it has a big old neon peach.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Haven't been.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Don't know what constitutes a Georgia's style diner. We're not
exactly known for our diners. Seems like more that's a
Queen's thing or a New York thing. But an odd
flip if if you will.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That is cool. I appreciate you pointed that out, because
we know that Georgia is still called the Peach State,
and it's it's it's weird if you've never visited our
fair metropolis. Uh, we've got a lot of stuff going
on where the little city in the forest that could
but our little conturbation has a lot of interesting things
(03:56):
going on street wise, in specifically now you got as
a recall, our old office was at a place called
Pont City Market, and if you walk just a few
blocks away from where that is, you can take a
left on a street that will be called Briarcliffe on
the same street. If you turn right, you're in a
(04:19):
whole different place called Morland. It is the same actual street.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
You know, Ben, you may have seen this meme as well.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I think it made national memes spheres, not just local,
though I do love local memes. Where it was a
picture of like the New York City grid, you know,
and you know, it's very makes a lot of sense,
and then a picture of Atlanta and the nonsensic called
street arrangements that we have, and then the New York
one said because you know, of course, and Atlanta was like, because.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
You and this obviously, even now as we're recording on
June fourth, twenty twenty six, it can be confus as
heck to people who are not familiar with this urban
design quirk. If we're being diplomatic, especially imagine you're a
tourist Noel back in the let's say nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
God forbid, right for GPS before smartphones.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Right right, and you inevitably will end up at the
wrong place in the city. So Our question is, while
the hubbub bub it turns out that there is a
story behind this, it is as disturbing as it is ridiculous.
Before we continue, bro, I know we all hate to
(05:42):
do this with outsiders, but we have millions of people
tuning in. Can we just tell them about the Peachtree thing? Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
We must, And by the way, you know, to kind
of go against the whole it's not that big a
deal that we were saying earlier.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
You mentioned our last office at Pont City Market.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
The one before that was definitely on Peachtree out in Buckhead.
So according to the Atlanta History Center, seventy one streets
in Atlanta are named with some form of the word Peachtree.
And that's a lot. Okay, maybe we downplaated it a touch,
a lot of street. Let's get there. The most famous
Peachtree on the list is, of course, you guessed, at
Peachtree Street, which runs from five Points, not to be
(06:20):
confused with little five points different downtown. Yeah, Atlanta through
Midtown and it is just a couple of blocks after
you enter the neighborhood of Buckhead, which is almost like
its own kind of community in a way. So this
makes the street, one of the longest in Atlanta, running
around six point two miles.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, and since, as we said, Georgia is known as
the Peach State, to the point where if you have
a voting sticker anytime you vote in an Atlanta election,
your sticker has a Peach audit and it says I voted.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Uh so, no, it's I secured my I did after
passing a bunch of non controversial voting laws.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Max, I'm gonna give you a minute to dig this
up or you might know it off the top of
your head.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
But have we done a Georgia episode in our states? Series?
Have many? We only have one.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
We only have one state left.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Which is what Yeah, New Hampshire.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Max phones.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Drops in the knowledge just for you.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
So there we go.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
What were our previous Georgia episodes? If you don't mind
me asking, I will go back perfect.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, great, we've got a list going courtesy of the
legendary Maxwell Williams. We also know, okay, Georgia is called
the Peach State, and we could all be forgiven for
thinking all these roads named peach Tree is just a
case of well meaning branding gone overboard. But there's so
(08:02):
much more to the story you know, Nola, as you
and I were talking about a few years ago off air.
Like every other town in the United States, Atlanta is
built on indigenous land.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
In Atlanta's case, the land belongs to the Muscogee peoples,
also known as the Creek. The Atlanta History Center once
again it's the Muscogee had a settlement.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
This isn't their words.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
The Atlanta History Center folks at the convergence of Peach
Tree Creek and the Chattahoochee River or the Hooch as
we like to call it, shooting the Hooch, that's when
you go tubing way.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I never knew how much it.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Meant to be that muddy water. It learned how to swim,
and I learned who I was about.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It little, just a little about love, just a little bit,
just like second base, a little oh no.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Just hand stuff.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
The Muscogee word for the site is let me share
my best here pakanahuy Pakanahuili, which translates roughly into English
as standing peach tree.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And please note some sources will attribute this to the Cherokee. However,
for our purposes, we're going with our friends at the
AHC Atlanta History Center. As they tell us, the Muscogee
peoples used a series of well established paths for long
distance traveling, and one of those led east from standing
(09:31):
peach Tree the English translation, until it terminated at a
trail of the Muscogee peoples. So it kind of makes
sense that people would keep using the original names as
the city expanded. But this also means that the idea
(09:52):
to name streets and trails after peach trees is older
than the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
You know, I think that's cool.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Actually, at least it means that because Atlanta is known
for not being the best steward of its own history
in terms yeah, at least in terms of architecture and
just kind of bulldozing the old stuff and building up
some kind of you know, crappy news stuff. But this
is a good example of like, you know, carrying the
the legacy of of of of pre Atlanta through you know,
(10:25):
our current history.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, go in, go in next, go in hard. I
need a hot take.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
All right, Well it's it's it's not a hot take.
It's actually an utter buzz kill. So get ready for this.
So how the pitch dock works is it's more the
not going to have that tracks these things. It's more
to keep track of, like when we've mentioned the state,
basically being like, we don't have to do an episode,
so only had one Georgia one in there, which was
MLK and Co Cola, But we also have other episodes
about when that's when the tree owned itself.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
History is centric. Okay, well those are some good ones.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Though way more than I have right here. Off I
can find quickly, but we definitely have more than one
episode about Georgia.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And we greatly appreciate you. Let's do the sound cue
Max with the ves second time here we go, all right, well, no, Max,
(11:37):
choose one. So all of the Atlanta streets cold Peach
Tree today or some derivation thereof, can attribute their names
to Peachtree Creek. This creek flows southwest through Dacab and
Fulton Counties and then it joins the Chattahoochee River just
(11:59):
south of Vinings. And the history here gets pretty ugly.
We got to go to the War of eighteen twelve,
and we promise we're going to the future with us one.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Do we have to? We have to do the War
of eighteen It's such a bomber.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
It's our remit it is a bummer.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
All right, all right, let's do it. You see, during
the War of eighteen twelve, as the AHC puts it,
the white settlers of Georgia were in direct conflict with
the Muscogee tribe, who leagued up with the Brits against
the United States, and the State of Georgia decided to
erect a series of bases forts, if you will, from
(12:40):
which to fight the Muscogee onslaughts, And that included Fort Peachtree,
which was built on the high ground that overlooked Standing Peachtree.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Remember that original one that had the native name.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
That's uh yeah, paka Nahu.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
There you go, Standing.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Peachtree, Standing Peach Tree. And fast forward one year, these
folks completed work on a pre existing trail from the Muskogee.
This trail connected Fort Peachtree to Fort Daniel. There was
a similar outpost at the ignominiously named Hog Mountain in
(13:19):
Gudet County. Sorry, I being a child, I know, but
they copied the stuff that they copied, the trail, marking
that the Muskogee peoples had already established hundreds, if not
thousands of years before. This is a relatively insignificant Road.
(13:40):
It eventually becomes called Peachtree Road. And if you go through,
of course, the western expansion, you will see that white
settlements were pressing for more and more indigenous land. Native
territories were AHC is going to tell you they were obtained,
(14:03):
but we can say it correctly. They were stolen through
a bunch of fake treaties or fraudulent treaties.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Dirty deals done dirt cheap.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Not made in good faith, for sure, and the first
Treaty of Indian Springs was signed in eighteen twenty one.
This resulted in the Muskogee Nation seeding four million acres
east of the Flint River that includes the future site
of what we call Atlanta today. By the end of
(14:36):
eighteen twenty seven, all Muskogee territory within the state of
Georgia had been in Uncle Sam's opinion, lost yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And then in eighteen thirty seven, the southern terminal of
the Western and Atlantic Railroad Companies or railroad lines were
constructed about seven miles from that standing Peachtree location and
just a hand for scy hop skip and a jump
a stone's throw from the end of the peach Tree trail,
and as the rail railway workers along with settlers and traders,
(15:12):
began to set up camps and homes and you know,
soon more permanent businesses. It became sort of a settlement
in the town. This is when I believe it was
referred to as Terminus, which you'll recall any fans of
The Walking Dead from when it was good, is what
they referred to Atlanta as, or at least there was
(15:35):
that encampment that they came across, you know, our our
heroes at the time called Terminus.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, and that part of The Walking Dead also filmed
here in Georgia. Terminus.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
The original need had it referred to the railway.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Etymology of it is that that's where the railway ends.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Met Oh, got it ended? Okay? I thought it was
like that makes sense, Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
We know that in eighteen forty three this area becomes
called Martha'sville.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Martha'sville sounds so quaint and homey. In eighteen forty five,
Martha'sville underwent a name change again to become Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
They love changing names here, we do.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
What was the way I've always I think we've maybe
talked about this is Atlanta a reference to like.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Atalantas it's a reference to at Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Which is another Native people.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
It's a reference to Greek mythological huntress at Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And another version of that, I think, according to an
engineer by the name of j Edgar Thompson, was the
Atlanta came from the feminine form of Atlantic and had
to do with the references to Western and Atlantic lines.
So again similar to what they're trying to accomplish with Terminus,
but maybe a little less severe sounding.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, yeah, a little less brutalism atam Mala. And yeah,
as we mentioned, the Western and Atlantic railroad, huge deal
for this growing city. Atlanta itself is somewhat anomalous in
the history of cities because it does not have coastal territory. Right,
(17:19):
It's not by the sea, where in a time when
most people were trading via the ocean, right or via
large navigable rivers like the Mississippi the Chattahoochee was okay
for a minute, but right now I have to tell
you guys, Atlanta's historical trade routes are not rivers, they're
(17:44):
not oceans. They're railroads, and then later they become airports.
We have the busiest airport on the planet. Depending on
how you you.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Knowatoya Jackson Industrial Spaceport. Oh Man, just kidding, that's just
my favor location tag for it. If you ever go,
it's Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. But I love LaToya Jackson Spaceport.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
And as the as Marthasville becomes Atlanta, it also becomes
again pre Civil War, one of the most vital economic
crossroads in the region. Its most well known street. As
we said, established first as a trail by the Muskogee peoples,
(18:28):
it has become one out of seventy one of the
most famous streets in the region. Time goes on, right,
and some of these streets doubtlessly get renamed either in
honor of notable locals or decisions by the local population,
or as a result of new construction. And to be
(18:50):
fair so that we don't sound dismissive or rude, this
happens in pretty much every single American city. Also be
a really sweet way to commemorate people who have made
a positive impact on your town, your neighborhood, your state,
your country. It's symbolic, but it's pretty cool. Mayors in
(19:13):
a special love this.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But you know, I mean, as helpful as it might
be just logistically speaking to maybe just have one street
named Peachtree. Changing the names of the other seventy wouldn't
just be an inconvenience at this point, it would also
be expensive. Think of all the infrastructure, the signage, Think
of the signage.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
You haven't thought of the signage, Think of everybody having
to change their address with any recurring bill. As a result,
we're kind of stuck with what we've got at the moment,
at least for now. And we're saying at least for now,
because Atlanta has a deep, deep history with changing the
(19:53):
names of streets, and they have this deep history not
for particularly noble reasons.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
It's not for funzies.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
It's not for funzies. I wish it was for funsies.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It has to do with the stitutional racism.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
There's a guy named Leon Epplin who back in nineteen
eighty five wrote something called Race and the Shaping of
twentieth Century Atlanta. And one of the pull quotes you've
got to hear from this one ridiculous historians, is this,
there are virtually no major decisions that are made in
(20:38):
the city of Atlanta that do not have a racial
factor built into it. Everything has a racial component.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
This is especially true during Atlanta's rebuilding after you know,
it got burned to the ground when the South lost
the Civil War, when you know, the Sherman's March to
the Sea and all of that good stuff, and the
echoes of this, as you put it, Ben in the
lovely outline that you created for this topic, coordinated segregation
(21:08):
stayed with us to this day.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, agreed, nol history is a palimpsest. Atlanta is no exception.
So after the Civil War, we see a lot of
black African American residents begin moving to Atlanta in large numbers,
and they're pursuing opportunities, you know, work, school, community. A
(21:33):
lot of folks are also honestly hoping to connect with
family members they were separated from during chattel slavery. There
are new city dwellers who are arriving at this time.
They create their own communities, neighborhoods like Reynoldstown, which we
all love to hang out in. It was founded in
(21:53):
eighteen seventy by former slaves working for the railroad. So
when this influx of black home and business owners move
closer to the white areas, the white residents not all
of them, but some of them, to be honest, a
lot of them. They work to create racial distance. This
(22:14):
obviously comes with the real world's realities of hate crime, oppression,
racial violence. But there's another aspect to it that fascinates Noel,
Max and myself, folks. It is this superficial, symbolic, often
cartoonish case of just naming the same street twice.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
What right, yeah, and go ahead and put it out there.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Now, there's a dang going on, some kind of alarm
somewhere in this co working space. I think Max is
going to do his darnness to get it out. But
if you hear it, that's what it is, and I
do apologize. But according to Paul Krater, also of the AHC,
the Atlanta History Center, he is their vice president of
Collections and Research Services, and says that there are multiple
examples of this thing that you're talking about, Ben, the
(23:01):
cartoonish renaming of streets. For example, in the nineteen sixties,
part of Southeast Atlanta's Whiteford Avenue I used to live
off of Whiteford was changed to Memorial Terrace.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
I love an avenue versus a terrace.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Not the whole street, but just a part of it,
which references back to what you were talking about there
at the top about how like, why is it that
on one side of the of the tracks it's called
one thing and then it changes to something else. Well,
here's why. I not that's unusual in other cities. But
it is a little bit wide rife, as our buddy
franklised to say here in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, wide rife. And I didn't know that we both
lived on Whiteford at a time, but I do remember, Hey,
we hung out at your house.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Actually it was on It was just it was like off.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
It was like, you know, right there behind where the
Kroger is, kind of near a little five points.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I yeah, it's happened to all of.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Us lived off of Whiteford as well. I'm sitting here,
I'm like, there's a couple of streets named Ford something.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Now I has wife heard it?
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, got two o's Weirdly enough, ed r
pal Creator's explanation for this is distressing, bonkers and pretty sad,
he notes.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Quote in the past, white citizens of the city decided,
through official channels to change the name of the street
because they did not want their neighborhoods to be associated
with African Americans who are moving in areas close to them,
and Creter traces us back to nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Wait, so hence white food where you think we might
have done something about that one by now, But yeah, no,
palimpsest meaning a manuscript that gets written on top of
and then erased and then written over and over again.
That is certainly what Atlanta is and history. So Creator
traces this whole kerfuffle back to nineteen thirteen when he
(24:59):
says the first sign the modern racial discrimination in housing began.
We've talked, certainly on this show and our sister podcasts
stuff you missed distric Class, plenty of episodes on this
concept of redlining, you know, housing zoning that is inherently
racially motivated, and of course redistricting, gerrymandering, you know, as
(25:20):
far as changing voting blocks that can also be pretty
darn racists. And now we just had a situation in
the United States where we had some almost reverse jerrymandering
to try to give some power back to some you know,
minority communities that was then overturned by the pretty problematic
Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
That we've keep sitting at the moment, right.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yes, yeah, agreed, we also know that nineteen thirteen is
the same year where an Atlanta City Council member named
Claude Ashley tries to segregate neighborhoods by race create something
called the Ashley Ordinance. This meant that the city would officially,
(26:05):
as a governmental power, ensure that various blocks will be
segregated again by race. Thankfully, just a few years later,
this policy made its way to Georgia's Supreme Court. Quick
backstory for anybody not familiar with the US. All of
the United States, they have to follow the federal Supreme Court,
(26:31):
but each state also has its own Supreme Court, and thankfully,
Georgia's Supreme Court ruled this Ashley Ordinance unconstitutional. It was
the first attempt to codify segregation. But Creator notes if
an official policy did not do the trick, these powerful
(26:52):
white decision makers do not hesitate to go around the
law through various means. They're waging a gariea nimbi war
in local politics and business circles. They would to make
sure that their spaces, their addresses are not associated with
black people.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right, some of these white residents were absolutely scandalized by
the thought of having to have the same street name
on their mailbox as a black family, even if that
house was just a couple of blocks away on the
very same street. So to these folks, that few blocks
away was may as well have been on the moon
and should have been considered, as far as they were concerned,
(27:32):
a different neighborhood, one that they would never enter, the
bad neighborhood, right, and it should be reflected as such
in any and every way possible, including address and map designation.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Right, yeah, absolutely, I mean not.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
That like neighborhoods aren't still a divisive thing, right, Like
neighbor I mean, you know, it's yeah, none of this
stuff is like particularly it has gone away. And you
could argue that in at and other parts of the country,
of course, that there are still racial divides in neighborhoods,
though some of them maybe are less imposed by government
(28:09):
and maybe more historical. Because of these things, these these families,
you know, they tend to gravitate towards these neighborhoods where
they were forced to live. And then generationally those are
the types of people that live in those neighborhoods.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And now they're being gentrified.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Well, that's also true, and that's its own problem.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Because it's like you put people there in the first
place because you didn't want to be around them, and
then all of a sudden, now where they live is
more valuable to you. And by you, I just mean
you know, folks in power, and typically that means white folks.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Shout out to the belt line.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
With shout out to the Beltline. And to be fair,
they have they have seemed to begin to follow through
with some of the affordable housing initiatives they promised. But
we'll see proofably in the putting Anybody's not from Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I am Jack's lack of.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Optimism understandable, and I'm not I'm just being Devil's advocate
and saying that there is I know some people who
work in city planning here in Atlanta and are down,
you know, do nonprofit work, and I have talked to
some folks that seem to think that there are there
is some good work being done in that direction by
good folks. But in general, the belt Line is this
(29:17):
connected rail lines that have been repurposed to connect different
parts of the city, and of course it becomes like
a shopping corridor, sort of like the High Line in
New York City, and the idea was that it would
be a great connector and a great way to connect
different neighborhoods. So now there's a part of the belt line.
I believe it's the West side belt Line that is
not gentrified yet, and it's a real stark contrast to
(29:42):
the part that's been being developed for many years.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
And I'd love to shout out Ryan Gravell, the great
architect of Atlanta's beltline. He came up with this while
he was studying at my alma mater, Georgia Tech.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Oh cool, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, yeah, And look, of course, the practice of an
idea is rarely as good or as ambitious as the
germination of an idea. But the beltline is awesome. I
think it's fair to say that we are all big
fans and we hope you get some time to hang
(30:18):
out there. It's very big in Atlanta to have a
walkable environment. These folks back during the back during the day,
these racist folks had to be careful, or they had
to at least pretend that rebranding street names was not
due to racism. They didn't want to play their hand
(30:40):
too openly. They didn't want to put their ulterior motives
on the written record. So if you look at a
lot of the documents pertaining to these name changes, you're
not going to see any genuine reason. Given we got
to go back to our pal creator. He was speaking
with CBS News and he said, look, this doesn't mean
(31:01):
there aren't examples. There could be examples in newspapers or
other documents from the time that say this explicitly.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
But I.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Can only point to the documents that I have found
that certainly imply that the reasons for these street name
changes were because of racial discrimination on the part of
white people. And a lot of other experts agree.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
So the Apex Museum president and CEO, a guy named
Dan Moore Junior, confirms that these things would happen pretty regularly,
these types of shenanigans. He notes that the white residents,
even if they were the minority in their area, would
often go cry into the city council, you know, waving
(31:50):
around petitions demanding that a street's name be changed.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, and there are again plenty of weird examples that
stay with us today. As we said at the top,
Moorland Avenue and Boulevard, two streets that frame historic Reynolds
Town from the west and East. They have their names
changed to Briarcliffe Road and Monroe Drive as you cross
(32:16):
poncet Lyon Avenue. Other streets where you can see the
same thing include Parkway and Charles Allen Drives, Central Park Place,
Argone Avenue, and Cortland Street. Cortland Street changes to Juniper
Street the further north you get. And while the official
records of the time may never explicitly state this, fellow
(32:40):
ridiculous historians, there is literally no other reason than racial discrimination.
That's it. That's the only reason you would go through
this stupid inconvenience.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Well right, and it wasn't just limited to city streets.
Even the highways and byways and the interstates got affected.
In the nineteen fifties while planning Interstate twenty, Mayor William B. Hartsfields,
who the spaceport is named after, said that he envisioned
this corridor, which is the main east west interstate in Atlanta,
(33:13):
as a quote boundary two of the biggest broadest air
quotes possible between the white and Negro communities.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I'm sorry you had to do that quote.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
No, it's okay, man, Its history and it is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
And we want to be accurate, and eventually this situation escalating.
So these white residents were no longer satisfied with name
changes on the street Memorial Terrorists, Whiteford, what have you.
(33:54):
It wasn't enough for them. So they went back to
the mayor, the city council, the other policy makers, and
they had a new pitch. They said, build us physical barriers.
We have black people living the same streets as the fights,
and we've got to we've got to fix this. So
(34:16):
the city erected literal roadblocks, or they would stop paving
a road. And that's part of why Atlanta has, especially
around I twenty, Atlanta has a lot of weird, dead
end streets. It's because these folks were literally telling the
(34:38):
city to block the roads.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Yeah, blockades.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Something called the Atlanta Wall was actually built in nineteen
sixty two, approved by the mayor at the time. Ivan
Allen Junior has got a lot of roads named after
him as well. This wooden barrier divided the white in
the black neighborhoods of Cascade Heights and it's just you know,
you point up been utterly petty.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, so petty, it's the same street. Luckily, this debacle
gets citywide. The national attention. It gets so much opprobrium
the city of Atlanta at this point and beat me here,
Max is looking like a bunch of Grade A assholes.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Oh yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
And again when you look at the map, compare it
to a city with the planning that was laid out
based on ergonomics.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
I guess it's for lack of a better.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Term, And you look at Atlanta that whole you know,
fu thing really does make sense and it's few black people.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Unfortunately, this is true, and it happened all around town.
We're happy to report that after just seventy two days
of public outcry, the infamous Atlanta Wall of Cascade Heights
was torn down. But again, palimpsess right, that's why you'll
still run into odd name changes and weird dead end streets. Luckily,
(35:59):
experts like or Alfha mentioned Dan Moore can tell us
that some streets in Atlanta have been renamed to honor
prominent non racist people, civil rights leaders especially. This makes sense, right,
We're the home of doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Of course, and it's there as well as Ebenezer Baptist Church,
and you know, prominently displayed signage and plaques, and you know,
there is a lot of good work done to honor
the history of Atlanta that surrounds the civil rights movements,
and a lot of things that are the antithesis of
the kinds of petty racist acts that we're talking about
(36:39):
in today's episode. More notes. If you're looking for street
names now, you ought to understand who those people are.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Joseph E.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Boone, Lowry, Donald Lee Hallowell. Those are street names that
mean something, So do yourself a favor in Google all
these folks. They've got stories in and of themselves that matter.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
We also know that at least three Atlanta streets have
been renamed. They were formerly Confederate. They had the word
Confederate somewhere in the names they were. Official story is
these streets like Confederate Avenue. I know you and I
spent some time there. They were not named after the
(37:23):
Confederacy of the Civil War, but they were named after
a nursing home for Confederate veterans in the area. Still,
this reminded a lot of people of some very nasty stuff,
So we want to shout out a grassroots campaign called
Neighbors for a new name. They successfully, Just like those
(37:45):
racist dudes earlier they successfully went to the city council
and the mayor and they said, please change these street names.
In twenty eighteen, some pretty interesting stuff happened.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
In twenty eighteen, Mayor Keisha lance Bottom signed a bill
that officially renamed a.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Lot of these streets.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
In November twenty nineteen, Confederate Avenue became United Avenue, East
Confederate Avenue became East United Avenue, and Confederate Court became
Trestletree Court for the nearby apartment complex.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Oh and speaking of the Confederacy, hoof Stone Mountain. Okay, folks,
we know, we know, we know, a.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
Bit of a blemish.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, I mean, beautiful park, beautiful mountain, but the tattooed
on the side not good.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah, there is still Jesse. No, folks, this is a
letter from home, from us to you. The city of Atlanta,
which we love dearly, is arguing to this day about
whether to replace the sculpture of Confederate soldiers. Was something
more fitting and a lot of people wanted to be.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
Outcast South Scots something to say, South.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Scott something to say.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
And the third yes, yes, the motion passes weekend.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Thank you enough for tuning in this is obviously a
hyper local story for us, because we, like you, were
baffled when we realized there were so many Peachtree streets
and there were so many strange streets that seem to
change their names.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
You know what, hyper local to us.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
But I think a lot of this stuff really does
fit into the greater history of this country and Atlanta.
You know, it looms large in other ways that we
sometimes living there take for granted.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
So we hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, we hope you visit us sometime soon. This is
one of the is one of the most inviting cities
in all of the United States. We've got some non
racist Atlanta street origin stories that we're going to share
with you in the future. Things we didn't get to episode,
but we on an end by giving you one quick
(40:03):
off the books locals guide to Atlanta. Folks, no matter
how you get here, whether you land on a plane
at Heartsfeld or whether you drive in, you have to
realize everybody is going to speak to you as though
they are vaguely related to Okay, how includes us, that
(40:26):
includes the three of us?
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Is there any maybe I'm missing something?
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Is this like about like language, like vernacular or just
a hospitality and.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Just the approachable thing. You're in a line at a
gas station or a grocery store, the person in front
of you or behind you is going to say something
like that's true. Oh it's mister shoes, And they're not
saying your shoes are bad.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
There's just I think maybe the kind of thing that
folks from the East might be taken aback by. I
was just going to be referred to as kind of
like a certain familiarity.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Familiarity again, like everybody is vaguely related to you. I
always tried to warn especially my Eastern European or Scandinavian friends,
you know, they think it's weird to talk on an elevator.
They don't understand that it's rude here at Atlanta not
to say something like noh, you know, wo is it
(41:26):
really floor fourteen and then have a little chuckle.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Precisely.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Thank you so much for tuning in, folks, Big big
thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams. I've been
your research associate for this episode. Big big thanks, by
the way to you, mister Noel Brown, in particular, you're
on the road and we talked about this off air
and you were like, Ben, no, we can't publish a classic.
(41:54):
We got to get the word to the people.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
We gotta do it, man, We got to spread the
good word of our hometown out to the good people
of the ridiculous history community. And you know, thankfully, if
I'm going to give a thanks or a shout out,
it's to whoever made that beep go away, because it
did seem to subside. I think it was some sort
of alarm, not that kind of be Max, not that
kind of be Max. It was much more of a clason,
(42:18):
a bit of a like a like an air raid siren, an.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Alarm clock or yeah, if it was.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
An alarm, guys, or a fire drill thing.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
It was very lackluster because it was just kind of incessant,
and you know, I didn't have an urgency, just very obnoxious.
But it did go ay, so hopefully he didn't have
to deal with that too much. But y'all, thanks for
working with me, and thanks to everybody for making this
happen and everybody out there for tuning in. Thanks to Johnava, Trickling,
the quist A, j Moahammad Jacob's the Puzzler, the Quister.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
The Incessant beep of our hearts and heads overdue to
reappear soon. Spoilers, we may have the legendary see you
on the case Pegram returning for a future conversation and
true story.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I'm definitely gonna have the fine folks over a ridiculous
crime on for another collab episode.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
That's right, Yeah, if you dig us, you will dig
those rude, rude dudes. Also, big thanks to Chris rossiotis
Eve's Jeffcoat here in spirit ed no again, man, Thanks
to you. It's such a rop to look at it.
They have a history and think of all the places
that you and Max and I have visited in person.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
All the places we'll go. Thanks to you, Ben for
the research on this one, and we'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. That's our Man of the Hour
super producer mister Max Williams given.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Up for Man of the two hours late, which is
my fault. That's not a nickname. That should go to you, Max,
that should go to me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I am never late to anything.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Have you guys ever seen me be late to anything?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Only you only once, and you were super weird about it, well,
at the very least, super apologetic.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
But I can't even recall the time you're talking about, Ben.
This is a me issue. I'm traveling. I was at
a place that was slightly unfamiliar or new to me,
and the internet crap the bed, and then I had
a hotel situation but it wasn't ready. So I do
come to y'all hat in hand from a coworking space.
So if y'all hear some New York types I having
meetings in the background, that's what's going on. But otherwise
(01:18):
it's pretty empty right now. But I'm knowl and you're Ben,
and you're champion and a scholar and a sport for
putting up with my shenanigans.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Ah, absolutely no sweat, zero perspiration, folks. That is indeed
the legendary mister Noel Brown. They do call me Ben
Bolin and the folks. We get on the road often
and we have shenanigans, and we're pretty upfront about it
when you know, Nol. There have been times I was
(01:46):
stranded in Japan, her Korea, and we kept the japandit.
I love it. Japan did. So. We are scattered across
the world often and one thing that always takes us
back home, all three of us, is a little town
called Atlanta. And Guys, I gotta tell you, there's this
(02:11):
old joke that really bothers a lot of us. When
tourists say it in Atlanta, they go, wow, every street
is named peach Tree something.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, they love to make that one. And they also
just love Hot Lanta.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Hotlanta.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And I don't know why it runs that's the wrong
way as locals, but it does. And I can't put
my finger on it. But the whole peachtree thing, there's
some truth to that, but also not to the degree
that people say, yeah, it feels like late late nineteen
(02:49):
eighties lazy stand up.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
You know, I went to Atlanta. I wanted to go
to Peach Tree. The cab driver said, which one? Anyway,
what's next the my airline food?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6 (03:03):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
By the way, it's speaking of peaches and George Georgia
Atlanta centric stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
We are known elsewhere in.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The country because there's a diner in Queens, New York,
where I'm staying that is called the Georgia Diner, and
it has a big old neon peach.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Haven't been.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Don't know what constitutes a Georgia's style diner. We're not
exactly known for our diners. Seems like more that's a
Queen's thing or a New York thing. But an odd
flip if if you will.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That is cool. I appreciate you pointed that out, because
we know that Georgia is still called the Peach State,
and it's it's it's weird if you've never visited our
fair metropolis. Uh, we've got a lot of stuff going
on where the little city in the forest that could
but our little conturbation has a lot of interesting things
(03:56):
going on street wise, in specifically now you got as
a recall, our old office was at a place called
Pont City Market, and if you walk just a few
blocks away from where that is, you can take a
left on a street that will be called Briarcliffe on
the same street. If you turn right, you're in a
(04:19):
whole different place called Morland. It is the same actual street.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
You know, Ben, you may have seen this meme as well.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I think it made national memes spheres, not just local,
though I do love local memes. Where it was a
picture of like the New York City grid, you know,
and you know, it's very makes a lot of sense,
and then a picture of Atlanta and the nonsensic called
street arrangements that we have, and then the New York
one said because you know, of course, and Atlanta was like, because.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
You and this obviously, even now as we're recording on
June fourth, twenty twenty six, it can be confus as
heck to people who are not familiar with this urban
design quirk. If we're being diplomatic, especially imagine you're a
tourist Noel back in the let's say nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
God forbid, right for GPS before smartphones.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Right right, and you inevitably will end up at the
wrong place in the city. So Our question is, while
the hubbub bub it turns out that there is a
story behind this, it is as disturbing as it is ridiculous.
Before we continue, bro, I know we all hate to
(05:42):
do this with outsiders, but we have millions of people
tuning in. Can we just tell them about the Peachtree thing? Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
We must, And by the way, you know, to kind
of go against the whole it's not that big a
deal that we were saying earlier.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
You mentioned our last office at Pont City Market.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
The one before that was definitely on Peachtree out in Buckhead.
So according to the Atlanta History Center, seventy one streets
in Atlanta are named with some form of the word Peachtree.
And that's a lot. Okay, maybe we downplaated it a touch,
a lot of street. Let's get there. The most famous
Peachtree on the list is, of course, you guessed, at
Peachtree Street, which runs from five Points, not to be
(06:20):
confused with little five points different downtown. Yeah, Atlanta through
Midtown and it is just a couple of blocks after
you enter the neighborhood of Buckhead, which is almost like
its own kind of community in a way. So this
makes the street, one of the longest in Atlanta, running
around six point two miles.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, and since, as we said, Georgia is known as
the Peach State, to the point where if you have
a voting sticker anytime you vote in an Atlanta election,
your sticker has a Peach audit and it says I voted.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Uh so, no, it's I secured my I did after
passing a bunch of non controversial voting laws.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Max, I'm gonna give you a minute to dig this
up or you might know it off the top of
your head.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
But have we done a Georgia episode in our states? Series?
Have many? We only have one.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
We only have one state left.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Which is what Yeah, New Hampshire.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Max phones.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Drops in the knowledge just for you.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
So there we go.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
What were our previous Georgia episodes? If you don't mind
me asking, I will go back perfect.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, great, we've got a list going courtesy of the
legendary Maxwell Williams. We also know, okay, Georgia is called
the Peach State, and we could all be forgiven for
thinking all these roads named peach Tree is just a
case of well meaning branding gone overboard. But there's so
(08:02):
much more to the story you know, Nola, as you
and I were talking about a few years ago off air.
Like every other town in the United States, Atlanta is
built on indigenous land.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
In Atlanta's case, the land belongs to the Muscogee peoples,
also known as the Creek. The Atlanta History Center once
again it's the Muscogee had a settlement.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
This isn't their words.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
The Atlanta History Center folks at the convergence of Peach
Tree Creek and the Chattahoochee River or the Hooch as
we like to call it, shooting the Hooch, that's when
you go tubing way.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I never knew how much it.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Meant to be that muddy water. It learned how to swim,
and I learned who I was about.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It little, just a little about love, just a little bit,
just like second base, a little oh no.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Just hand stuff.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
The Muscogee word for the site is let me share
my best here pakanahuy Pakanahuili, which translates roughly into English
as standing peach tree.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And please note some sources will attribute this to the Cherokee. However,
for our purposes, we're going with our friends at the
AHC Atlanta History Center. As they tell us, the Muscogee
peoples used a series of well established paths for long
distance traveling, and one of those led east from standing
(09:31):
peach Tree the English translation, until it terminated at a
trail of the Muscogee peoples. So it kind of makes
sense that people would keep using the original names as
the city expanded. But this also means that the idea
(09:52):
to name streets and trails after peach trees is older
than the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
You know, I think that's cool.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Actually, at least it means that because Atlanta is known
for not being the best steward of its own history
in terms yeah, at least in terms of architecture and
just kind of bulldozing the old stuff and building up
some kind of you know, crappy news stuff. But this
is a good example of like, you know, carrying the
the legacy of of of of pre Atlanta through you know,
(10:25):
our current history.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, go in, go in next, go in hard. I
need a hot take.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
All right, Well it's it's it's not a hot take.
It's actually an utter buzz kill. So get ready for this.
So how the pitch dock works is it's more the
not going to have that tracks these things. It's more
to keep track of, like when we've mentioned the state,
basically being like, we don't have to do an episode,
so only had one Georgia one in there, which was
MLK and Co Cola, But we also have other episodes
about when that's when the tree owned itself.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
History is centric. Okay, well those are some good ones.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Though way more than I have right here. Off I
can find quickly, but we definitely have more than one
episode about Georgia.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And we greatly appreciate you. Let's do the sound cue
Max with the ves second time here we go, all right, well, no, Max,
(11:37):
choose one. So all of the Atlanta streets cold Peach
Tree today or some derivation thereof, can attribute their names
to Peachtree Creek. This creek flows southwest through Dacab and
Fulton Counties and then it joins the Chattahoochee River just
(11:59):
south of Vinings. And the history here gets pretty ugly.
We got to go to the War of eighteen twelve,
and we promise we're going to the future with us one.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Do we have to? We have to do the War
of eighteen It's such a bomber.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
It's our remit it is a bummer.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
All right, all right, let's do it. You see, during
the War of eighteen twelve, as the AHC puts it,
the white settlers of Georgia were in direct conflict with
the Muscogee tribe, who leagued up with the Brits against
the United States, and the State of Georgia decided to
erect a series of bases forts, if you will, from
(12:40):
which to fight the Muscogee onslaughts, And that included Fort Peachtree,
which was built on the high ground that overlooked Standing Peachtree.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Remember that original one that had the native name.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
That's uh yeah, paka Nahu.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
There you go, Standing.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Peachtree, Standing Peach Tree. And fast forward one year, these
folks completed work on a pre existing trail from the Muskogee.
This trail connected Fort Peachtree to Fort Daniel. There was
a similar outpost at the ignominiously named Hog Mountain in
(13:19):
Gudet County. Sorry, I being a child, I know, but
they copied the stuff that they copied, the trail, marking
that the Muskogee peoples had already established hundreds, if not
thousands of years before. This is a relatively insignificant Road.
(13:40):
It eventually becomes called Peachtree Road. And if you go through,
of course, the western expansion, you will see that white
settlements were pressing for more and more indigenous land. Native
territories were AHC is going to tell you they were obtained,
(14:03):
but we can say it correctly. They were stolen through
a bunch of fake treaties or fraudulent treaties.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Dirty deals done dirt cheap.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Not made in good faith, for sure, and the first
Treaty of Indian Springs was signed in eighteen twenty one.
This resulted in the Muskogee Nation seeding four million acres
east of the Flint River that includes the future site
of what we call Atlanta today. By the end of
(14:36):
eighteen twenty seven, all Muskogee territory within the state of
Georgia had been in Uncle Sam's opinion, lost yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And then in eighteen thirty seven, the southern terminal of
the Western and Atlantic Railroad Companies or railroad lines were
constructed about seven miles from that standing Peachtree location and
just a hand for scy hop skip and a jump
a stone's throw from the end of the peach Tree trail,
and as the rail railway workers along with settlers and traders,
(15:12):
began to set up camps and homes and you know,
soon more permanent businesses. It became sort of a settlement
in the town. This is when I believe it was
referred to as Terminus, which you'll recall any fans of
The Walking Dead from when it was good, is what
they referred to Atlanta as, or at least there was
(15:35):
that encampment that they came across, you know, our our
heroes at the time called Terminus.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, and that part of The Walking Dead also filmed
here in Georgia. Terminus.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
The original need had it referred to the railway.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Etymology of it is that that's where the railway ends.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Met Oh, got it ended? Okay? I thought it was
like that makes sense, Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
We know that in eighteen forty three this area becomes
called Martha'sville.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Martha'sville sounds so quaint and homey. In eighteen forty five,
Martha'sville underwent a name change again to become Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
They love changing names here, we do.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
What was the way I've always I think we've maybe
talked about this is Atlanta a reference to like.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Atalantas it's a reference to at Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Which is another Native people.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
It's a reference to Greek mythological huntress at Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And another version of that, I think, according to an
engineer by the name of j Edgar Thompson, was the
Atlanta came from the feminine form of Atlantic and had
to do with the references to Western and Atlantic lines.
So again similar to what they're trying to accomplish with Terminus,
but maybe a little less severe sounding.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, yeah, a little less brutalism atam Mala. And yeah,
as we mentioned, the Western and Atlantic railroad, huge deal
for this growing city. Atlanta itself is somewhat anomalous in
the history of cities because it does not have coastal territory. Right,
(17:19):
It's not by the sea, where in a time when
most people were trading via the ocean, right or via
large navigable rivers like the Mississippi the Chattahoochee was okay
for a minute, but right now I have to tell
you guys, Atlanta's historical trade routes are not rivers, they're
(17:44):
not oceans. They're railroads, and then later they become airports.
We have the busiest airport on the planet. Depending on
how you you.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Knowatoya Jackson Industrial Spaceport. Oh Man, just kidding, that's just
my favor location tag for it. If you ever go,
it's Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. But I love LaToya Jackson Spaceport.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
And as the as Marthasville becomes Atlanta, it also becomes
again pre Civil War, one of the most vital economic
crossroads in the region. Its most well known street. As
we said, established first as a trail by the Muskogee peoples,
(18:28):
it has become one out of seventy one of the
most famous streets in the region. Time goes on, right,
and some of these streets doubtlessly get renamed either in
honor of notable locals or decisions by the local population,
or as a result of new construction. And to be
(18:50):
fair so that we don't sound dismissive or rude, this
happens in pretty much every single American city. Also be
a really sweet way to commemorate people who have made
a positive impact on your town, your neighborhood, your state,
your country. It's symbolic, but it's pretty cool. Mayors in
(19:13):
a special love this.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But you know, I mean, as helpful as it might
be just logistically speaking to maybe just have one street
named Peachtree. Changing the names of the other seventy wouldn't
just be an inconvenience at this point, it would also
be expensive. Think of all the infrastructure, the signage, Think
of the signage.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
You haven't thought of the signage, Think of everybody having
to change their address with any recurring bill. As a result,
we're kind of stuck with what we've got at the moment,
at least for now. And we're saying at least for now,
because Atlanta has a deep, deep history with changing the
(19:53):
names of streets, and they have this deep history not
for particularly noble reasons.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
It's not for funzies.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
It's not for funzies. I wish it was for funsies.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It has to do with the stitutional racism.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
There's a guy named Leon Epplin who back in nineteen
eighty five wrote something called Race and the Shaping of
twentieth Century Atlanta. And one of the pull quotes you've
got to hear from this one ridiculous historians, is this,
there are virtually no major decisions that are made in
(20:38):
the city of Atlanta that do not have a racial
factor built into it. Everything has a racial component.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
This is especially true during Atlanta's rebuilding after you know,
it got burned to the ground when the South lost
the Civil War, when you know, the Sherman's March to
the Sea and all of that good stuff, and the
echoes of this, as you put it, Ben in the
lovely outline that you created for this topic, coordinated segregation
(21:08):
stayed with us to this day.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, agreed, nol history is a palimpsest. Atlanta is no exception.
So after the Civil War, we see a lot of
black African American residents begin moving to Atlanta in large numbers,
and they're pursuing opportunities, you know, work, school, community. A
(21:33):
lot of folks are also honestly hoping to connect with
family members they were separated from during chattel slavery. There
are new city dwellers who are arriving at this time.
They create their own communities, neighborhoods like Reynoldstown, which we
all love to hang out in. It was founded in
(21:53):
eighteen seventy by former slaves working for the railroad. So
when this influx of black home and business owners move
closer to the white areas, the white residents not all
of them, but some of them, to be honest, a
lot of them. They work to create racial distance. This
(22:14):
obviously comes with the real world's realities of hate crime, oppression,
racial violence. But there's another aspect to it that fascinates Noel,
Max and myself, folks. It is this superficial, symbolic, often
cartoonish case of just naming the same street twice.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
What right, yeah, and go ahead and put it out there.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Now, there's a dang going on, some kind of alarm
somewhere in this co working space. I think Max is
going to do his darnness to get it out. But
if you hear it, that's what it is, and I
do apologize. But according to Paul Krater, also of the AHC,
the Atlanta History Center, he is their vice president of
Collections and Research Services, and says that there are multiple
examples of this thing that you're talking about, Ben, the
(23:01):
cartoonish renaming of streets. For example, in the nineteen sixties,
part of Southeast Atlanta's Whiteford Avenue I used to live
off of Whiteford was changed to Memorial Terrace.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
I love an avenue versus a terrace.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Not the whole street, but just a part of it,
which references back to what you were talking about there
at the top about how like, why is it that
on one side of the of the tracks it's called
one thing and then it changes to something else. Well,
here's why. I not that's unusual in other cities. But
it is a little bit wide rife, as our buddy
franklised to say here in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, wide rife. And I didn't know that we both
lived on Whiteford at a time, but I do remember, Hey,
we hung out at your house.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Actually it was on It was just it was like off.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
It was like, you know, right there behind where the
Kroger is, kind of near a little five points.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I yeah, it's happened to all of.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Us lived off of Whiteford as well. I'm sitting here,
I'm like, there's a couple of streets named Ford something.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Now I has wife heard it?
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, got two o's Weirdly enough, ed r
pal Creator's explanation for this is distressing, bonkers and pretty sad,
he notes.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Quote in the past, white citizens of the city decided,
through official channels to change the name of the street
because they did not want their neighborhoods to be associated
with African Americans who are moving in areas close to them,
and Creter traces us back to nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Wait, so hence white food where you think we might
have done something about that one by now, But yeah, no,
palimpsest meaning a manuscript that gets written on top of
and then erased and then written over and over again.
That is certainly what Atlanta is and history. So Creator
traces this whole kerfuffle back to nineteen thirteen when he
(24:59):
says the first sign the modern racial discrimination in housing began.
We've talked, certainly on this show and our sister podcasts
stuff you missed distric Class, plenty of episodes on this
concept of redlining, you know, housing zoning that is inherently
racially motivated, and of course redistricting, gerrymandering, you know, as
(25:20):
far as changing voting blocks that can also be pretty
darn racists. And now we just had a situation in
the United States where we had some almost reverse jerrymandering
to try to give some power back to some you know,
minority communities that was then overturned by the pretty problematic
Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
That we've keep sitting at the moment, right.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yes, yeah, agreed, we also know that nineteen thirteen is
the same year where an Atlanta City Council member named
Claude Ashley tries to segregate neighborhoods by race create something
called the Ashley Ordinance. This meant that the city would officially,
(26:05):
as a governmental power, ensure that various blocks will be
segregated again by race. Thankfully, just a few years later,
this policy made its way to Georgia's Supreme Court. Quick
backstory for anybody not familiar with the US. All of
the United States, they have to follow the federal Supreme Court,
(26:31):
but each state also has its own Supreme Court, and thankfully,
Georgia's Supreme Court ruled this Ashley Ordinance unconstitutional. It was
the first attempt to codify segregation. But Creator notes if
an official policy did not do the trick, these powerful
(26:52):
white decision makers do not hesitate to go around the
law through various means. They're waging a gariea nimbi war
in local politics and business circles. They would to make
sure that their spaces, their addresses are not associated with
black people.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right, some of these white residents were absolutely scandalized by
the thought of having to have the same street name
on their mailbox as a black family, even if that
house was just a couple of blocks away on the
very same street. So to these folks, that few blocks
away was may as well have been on the moon
and should have been considered, as far as they were concerned,
(27:32):
a different neighborhood, one that they would never enter, the
bad neighborhood, right, and it should be reflected as such
in any and every way possible, including address and map designation.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Right, yeah, absolutely, I mean not.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
That like neighborhoods aren't still a divisive thing, right, Like
neighbor I mean, you know, it's yeah, none of this
stuff is like particularly it has gone away. And you
could argue that in at and other parts of the country,
of course, that there are still racial divides in neighborhoods,
though some of them maybe are less imposed by government
(28:09):
and maybe more historical. Because of these things, these these families,
you know, they tend to gravitate towards these neighborhoods where
they were forced to live. And then generationally those are
the types of people that live in those neighborhoods.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And now they're being gentrified.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Well, that's also true, and that's its own problem.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Because it's like you put people there in the first
place because you didn't want to be around them, and
then all of a sudden, now where they live is
more valuable to you. And by you, I just mean
you know, folks in power, and typically that means white folks.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Shout out to the belt line.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
With shout out to the Beltline. And to be fair,
they have they have seemed to begin to follow through
with some of the affordable housing initiatives they promised. But
we'll see proofably in the putting Anybody's not from Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I am Jack's lack of.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Optimism understandable, and I'm not I'm just being Devil's advocate
and saying that there is I know some people who
work in city planning here in Atlanta and are down,
you know, do nonprofit work, and I have talked to
some folks that seem to think that there are there
is some good work being done in that direction by
good folks. But in general, the belt Line is this
(29:17):
connected rail lines that have been repurposed to connect different
parts of the city, and of course it becomes like
a shopping corridor, sort of like the High Line in
New York City, and the idea was that it would
be a great connector and a great way to connect
different neighborhoods. So now there's a part of the belt line.
I believe it's the West side belt Line that is
not gentrified yet, and it's a real stark contrast to
(29:42):
the part that's been being developed for many years.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
And I'd love to shout out Ryan Gravell, the great
architect of Atlanta's beltline. He came up with this while
he was studying at my alma mater, Georgia Tech.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Oh cool, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, yeah, And look, of course, the practice of an
idea is rarely as good or as ambitious as the
germination of an idea. But the beltline is awesome. I
think it's fair to say that we are all big
fans and we hope you get some time to hang
(30:18):
out there. It's very big in Atlanta to have a
walkable environment. These folks back during the back during the day,
these racist folks had to be careful, or they had
to at least pretend that rebranding street names was not
due to racism. They didn't want to play their hand
(30:40):
too openly. They didn't want to put their ulterior motives
on the written record. So if you look at a
lot of the documents pertaining to these name changes, you're
not going to see any genuine reason. Given we got
to go back to our pal creator. He was speaking
with CBS News and he said, look, this doesn't mean
(31:01):
there aren't examples. There could be examples in newspapers or
other documents from the time that say this explicitly.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
But I.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Can only point to the documents that I have found
that certainly imply that the reasons for these street name
changes were because of racial discrimination on the part of
white people. And a lot of other experts agree.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
So the Apex Museum president and CEO, a guy named
Dan Moore Junior, confirms that these things would happen pretty regularly,
these types of shenanigans. He notes that the white residents,
even if they were the minority in their area, would
often go cry into the city council, you know, waving
(31:50):
around petitions demanding that a street's name be changed.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, and there are again plenty of weird examples that
stay with us today. As we said at the top,
Moorland Avenue and Boulevard, two streets that frame historic Reynolds
Town from the west and East. They have their names
changed to Briarcliffe Road and Monroe Drive as you cross
(32:16):
poncet Lyon Avenue. Other streets where you can see the
same thing include Parkway and Charles Allen Drives, Central Park Place,
Argone Avenue, and Cortland Street. Cortland Street changes to Juniper
Street the further north you get. And while the official
records of the time may never explicitly state this, fellow
(32:40):
ridiculous historians, there is literally no other reason than racial discrimination.
That's it. That's the only reason you would go through
this stupid inconvenience.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Well right, and it wasn't just limited to city streets.
Even the highways and byways and the interstates got affected.
In the nineteen fifties while planning Interstate twenty, Mayor William B. Hartsfields,
who the spaceport is named after, said that he envisioned
this corridor, which is the main east west interstate in Atlanta,
(33:13):
as a quote boundary two of the biggest broadest air
quotes possible between the white and Negro communities.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I'm sorry you had to do that quote.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
No, it's okay, man, Its history and it is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
And we want to be accurate, and eventually this situation escalating.
So these white residents were no longer satisfied with name
changes on the street Memorial Terrorists, Whiteford, what have you.
(33:54):
It wasn't enough for them. So they went back to
the mayor, the city council, the other policy makers, and
they had a new pitch. They said, build us physical barriers.
We have black people living the same streets as the fights,
and we've got to we've got to fix this. So
(34:16):
the city erected literal roadblocks, or they would stop paving
a road. And that's part of why Atlanta has, especially
around I twenty, Atlanta has a lot of weird, dead
end streets. It's because these folks were literally telling the
(34:38):
city to block the roads.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Yeah, blockades.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Something called the Atlanta Wall was actually built in nineteen
sixty two, approved by the mayor at the time. Ivan
Allen Junior has got a lot of roads named after
him as well. This wooden barrier divided the white in
the black neighborhoods of Cascade Heights and it's just you know,
you point up been utterly petty.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, so petty, it's the same street. Luckily, this debacle
gets citywide. The national attention. It gets so much opprobrium
the city of Atlanta at this point and beat me here,
Max is looking like a bunch of Grade A assholes.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Oh yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
And again when you look at the map, compare it
to a city with the planning that was laid out
based on ergonomics.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
I guess it's for lack of a better.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Term, And you look at Atlanta that whole you know,
fu thing really does make sense and it's few black people.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Unfortunately, this is true, and it happened all around town.
We're happy to report that after just seventy two days
of public outcry, the infamous Atlanta Wall of Cascade Heights
was torn down. But again, palimpsess right, that's why you'll
still run into odd name changes and weird dead end streets. Luckily,
(35:59):
experts like or Alfha mentioned Dan Moore can tell us
that some streets in Atlanta have been renamed to honor
prominent non racist people, civil rights leaders especially. This makes sense, right,
We're the home of doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Of course, and it's there as well as Ebenezer Baptist Church,
and you know, prominently displayed signage and plaques, and you know,
there is a lot of good work done to honor
the history of Atlanta that surrounds the civil rights movements,
and a lot of things that are the antithesis of
the kinds of petty racist acts that we're talking about
(36:39):
in today's episode. More notes. If you're looking for street
names now, you ought to understand who those people are.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Joseph E.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Boone, Lowry, Donald Lee Hallowell. Those are street names that
mean something, So do yourself a favor in Google all
these folks. They've got stories in and of themselves that matter.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
We also know that at least three Atlanta streets have
been renamed. They were formerly Confederate. They had the word
Confederate somewhere in the names they were. Official story is
these streets like Confederate Avenue. I know you and I
spent some time there. They were not named after the
(37:23):
Confederacy of the Civil War, but they were named after
a nursing home for Confederate veterans in the area. Still,
this reminded a lot of people of some very nasty stuff,
So we want to shout out a grassroots campaign called
Neighbors for a new name. They successfully, Just like those
(37:45):
racist dudes earlier they successfully went to the city council
and the mayor and they said, please change these street names.
In twenty eighteen, some pretty interesting stuff happened.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
In twenty eighteen, Mayor Keisha lance Bottom signed a bill
that officially renamed a.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Lot of these streets.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
In November twenty nineteen, Confederate Avenue became United Avenue, East
Confederate Avenue became East United Avenue, and Confederate Court became
Trestletree Court for the nearby apartment complex.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Oh and speaking of the Confederacy, hoof Stone Mountain. Okay, folks,
we know, we know, we know, a.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
Bit of a blemish.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, I mean, beautiful park, beautiful mountain, but the tattooed
on the side not good.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah, there is still Jesse. No, folks, this is a
letter from home, from us to you. The city of Atlanta,
which we love dearly, is arguing to this day about
whether to replace the sculpture of Confederate soldiers. Was something
more fitting and a lot of people wanted to be.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
Outcast South Scots something to say, South.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Scott something to say.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
And the third yes, yes, the motion passes weekend.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Thank you enough for tuning in this is obviously a
hyper local story for us, because we, like you, were
baffled when we realized there were so many Peachtree streets
and there were so many strange streets that seem to
change their names.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
You know what, hyper local to us.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
But I think a lot of this stuff really does
fit into the greater history of this country and Atlanta.
You know, it looms large in other ways that we
sometimes living there take for granted.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
So we hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, we hope you visit us sometime soon. This is
one of the is one of the most inviting cities
in all of the United States. We've got some non
racist Atlanta street origin stories that we're going to share
with you in the future. Things we didn't get to episode,
but we on an end by giving you one quick
(40:03):
off the books locals guide to Atlanta. Folks, no matter
how you get here, whether you land on a plane
at Heartsfeld or whether you drive in, you have to
realize everybody is going to speak to you as though
they are vaguely related to Okay, how includes us, that
(40:26):
includes the three of us?
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Is there any maybe I'm missing something?
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Is this like about like language, like vernacular or just
a hospitality and.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Just the approachable thing. You're in a line at a
gas station or a grocery store, the person in front
of you or behind you is going to say something
like that's true. Oh it's mister shoes, And they're not
saying your shoes are bad.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
There's just I think maybe the kind of thing that
folks from the East might be taken aback by. I
was just going to be referred to as kind of
like a certain familiarity.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Familiarity again, like everybody is vaguely related to you. I
always tried to warn especially my Eastern European or Scandinavian friends,
you know, they think it's weird to talk on an elevator.
They don't understand that it's rude here at Atlanta not
to say something like noh, you know, wo is it
(41:26):
really floor fourteen and then have a little chuckle.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Precisely.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Thank you so much for tuning in, folks, Big big
thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams. I've been
your research associate for this episode. Big big thanks, by
the way to you, mister Noel Brown, in particular, you're
on the road and we talked about this off air
and you were like, Ben, no, we can't publish a classic.
(41:54):
We got to get the word to the people.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
We gotta do it, man, We got to spread the
good word of our hometown out to the good people
of the ridiculous history community. And you know, thankfully, if
I'm going to give a thanks or a shout out,
it's to whoever made that beep go away, because it
did seem to subside. I think it was some sort
of alarm, not that kind of be Max, not that
kind of be Max. It was much more of a clason,
(42:18):
a bit of a like a like an air raid siren, an.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Alarm clock or yeah, if it was.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
An alarm, guys, or a fire drill thing.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
It was very lackluster because it was just kind of incessant,
and you know, I didn't have an urgency, just very obnoxious.
But it did go ay, so hopefully he didn't have
to deal with that too much. But y'all, thanks for
working with me, and thanks to everybody for making this
happen and everybody out there for tuning in. Thanks to Johnava, Trickling,
the quist A, j Moahammad Jacob's the Puzzler, the Quister.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
The Incessant beep of our hearts and heads overdue to
reappear soon. Spoilers, we may have the legendary see you
on the case Pegram returning for a future conversation and
true story.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I'm definitely gonna have the fine folks over a ridiculous
crime on for another collab episode.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
That's right, Yeah, if you dig us, you will dig
those rude, rude dudes. Also, big thanks to Chris rossiotis
Eve's Jeffcoat here in spirit ed no again, man, Thanks
to you. It's such a rop to look at it.
They have a history and think of all the places
that you and Max and I have visited in person.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
All the places we'll go. Thanks to you, Ben for
the research on this one, and we'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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