Archive Atlanta

This government issued military headstone is in the unkempt portion of

Tom Lee Ellis died at age 30 in March of 1944. We suspect he served locally because Atlanta was the head of the procurement district for the states of Florida, Alabama, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Mississippi for the Chemical Warfare Service, who as their name suggests manufactured and distributed chemical weapons for the war effort.

The development of chemical weapons was a nasty business and suspects the Corporal was the victim of a manufacturing incident.

His funeral, at Ebenezer Baptist Church was presided over by “Daddy” King.

The Argonne Forest, in France, was the setting for the Meuse-Argonne Offensive (1918), the largest and deadliest campaign in American military history. In the early 1950s, Atlanta developed the Argonne Forest neighborhood, with street names to honor WWI battles.

This house on Marne Drive was one of my favorites because the property lines the creek. It was advertised in 1960 as “new” and “designed by one of Atlanta’s leading architects” - but it never says who 🤔

The first residents were Dr. and Mrs. Harrison Reeves. Dr. Reeve’s father, Charles Walton Reeves, was a prominent photographer and an Army aerial photographer in France during World War I.

The influence and legacy of the Klu Klux Klan still lingers, not just in the South, but across America.

Built in 1924, the Cotton Exchange building at 3155 Roswell Road was deeded to the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who used it as a sheet factory, where most robes and hoods were made until 1929. Each new initiate would be sold a gown, which ranged from $4 - $6.50 (and cost $0.50 to make).

Imperial Wizard, J.A. Colescott had his office here in 1940 and it was often called the Imperial Palace in the press. In 1943, they sold the building to be used for apartment housing, as employees working in WWII-related industries filled the metro area.

The oldest Deckner family (Charles + Mattie) house is this c. 1867, Central Hall Cottage along Metropolitan Parkway.

German-born Frederick Deckner moved to Atlanta in 1865, where he purchased land south of the city, in the future Capitol View. He was a master farmer and gardener and wrote articles on the subjects for the Atlanta Constitution.

He and his wife Marie had 7 children, and the Deckners built homes along the street in the following decades.