Atlanta, Georgia, is incorporated as a town…

Atlanta, Georgia, is incorporated as a town December 29, 1847.

A decade earlier, the Georgia General Assembly had voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad in order to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest.

The initial route was to run southward from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would be linked to Savannah.

fter engineers surveyed various possible locations for the terminus, the "zero milepost" was driven into the ground in what is now Foundry Street, Five Points.

When asked in 1837 about the future of the little village, Stephen H.Long, the railroad's chief engineer said the place would be good "for one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else".

A year later, the area around the milepost had developed into a settlement, first known as Terminus, and later Thrasherville, after a local merchant who built homes and a general store in the area.

By 1842, the town had six buildings and thirty residents and had been renamed Marthasville to honor Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha.

Later, John Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested the town be renamed Atlanta; the residents had approved.