History of Alpharetta
Today with bustling roads and new houses being built every week it’s hard to imagine the beginning of the city of Alpharetta, Georgia. The inception of Alpharetta dates back to the early 1800s. Before it was recognized as a city, it was just a small unincorporated development of pioneers and settlers in the South. Long before the settlers arrived, the Cherokee and Creek Indian tribes called Alpharetta home. They were initially drawn to the large reliable water sources of the natural springs and nearby Chattahoochee River that also provided transportation.
The natural springs later caught the eye of travelers looking to bathe in and drink from the springs which were said to contain healing properties that could cure a multitude of illnesses like arthritis and rheumatism to name a couple. Word of the natural springs quickly spread to others, causing more travelers to venture to Alpharetta for the springs, making it a popular tourist destination. Magnolia and Sweetwater Springs were two of the most popular Alpharetta natural springs in the early 1800s. Today there are still a few natural springs in Alpharetta located in the Big Creek Greenway where you can bathe and drink from the mineral-rich water with the same hopes of early settlers to be blessed by its mysterious healing properties.
Although the natural springs were a hotspot of tourism, it was not enough of a motivating factor to get travelers interested in moving and settling into Alpharetta land. The Cherokee and Creek tribes occupied Alpharetta until settlers and pioneers flocked to north Georgia for the promise to strike it rich in the Gold Rush of Dahlonega, Georgia from 1828 to 1829. German, Irish, English, and Scottish immigrants also scoped out the area for its promise of community, fertile farmland, and potential land ownership. The plentiful forests of Alpharetta also provided a steady timber supply that would create several sawmills in the area as well as gristmills for processing corn into flour and cornmeal.
How was the land for Alpharetta acquired?
To remedy the rise in population and shortage of land to settle, the Georgia General Assembly authorized 2 acts on December 21, 1830, and December 24, 1831, as part of the Land Lottery of 1832. This plan was to acquire and redistribute Cherokee land in Cass (future Bartow), Cobb, Cherokee, Gilmer, Forsyth, Paulding, Union, Murray, and Lumpkin counties to the pioneers eager to settle the land for farming cotton and to “make room for progress”. Alpharetta soon became a checkpoint for pioneers traveling from the mountains to the railroad Terminus, now Atlanta.
Terminus was a major draw in the South because it was declared in 1836 to be the “terminus” point to a railroad that would extend from this point to the United States Midwest marked by the Zero Mile Post. Alpharetta soon became a hotspot for traders, farmers, pioneers, travelers, and prospectors and was originally called “New Prospect Camp Ground”, serving as an unincorporated meeting point and trading post for those traveling to Terminus. Alpharetta maintained this campground/meeting point status and slowly developed a culture over the next 26 years.
When was Alpharetta declared a city?
In 1858 Alpharetta was incorporated and declared as a county seat for the newly established Milton County. The Milton County Court House was built in Alpharetta on the site of what is Alpharetta City Hall in Downtown Alpharetta today. The families that pioneered the settlement of Alpharetta are honored today with streets named after them around Fulton County like Dorris, Bates, Broadwell, Maxwell, Hembree, Mansell, Rucker, Webb, Phillips, Wills, and Mayfield. In Alpharetta, beloved Wills Park is even named in honor of Q.A.
“Quillie” Wills, a 5-term mayor of Alpharetta, businessman, and the son of James A. Wills, an early settler of Alpharetta. Quillie gratuitously sold the land to Fulton County at well below market value, investing further into the blossoming community he served and where his lineage called home since its early years. Alpharetta’s boundaries were established as a half-mile around the courthouse, the center of the community. Only 4 streets branched from the courthouse, connecting the city to commercial structures like a bank, hotels, the Alpharetta Free Press, and a school, later making room for in-town homes.
Settlers of Alpharetta were mostly Methodist or Baptist and mainly worked as blacksmiths, farmers, carpenters, ditchers, merchants, millers, and other agriculture/tradesmen-type professions. Since cotton was a big crop in the south, many farmers grew cotton in bordering areas outside of Alpharetta, but it was brought into town where it was warehoused, ginned, and then sold to the nearby Roswell Textile Mills. Shortly after its incorporation, Alpharetta faced hardships in the form of a Smallpox epidemic in 1863 and the Civil War from 1861-1865, but the trials and tribulations were not enough to shake the spirit of this tough town. Alpharetta rocked along, recovering from the Civil War, but was soon blessed with a breakthrough that would catapult the city into a new realm of expansion.
Richmond to ATL Railroad Expansion
In North Carolina in 1870, the Atlanta and Richmond Airline was formed as the result of a merger between the Air Line Railroad Company of South Carolina and the Georgia Air Line Railroad Company. Richmond and Danville Railroad controlled the new merger and project that sought to construct a railroad line from Charlotte, North Carolina to Atlanta, Georgia. By 1871 the first 53 miles of railroad extending from Atlanta were finished and in 1872 the Richmond and Danville Railroad guaranteed the final stages of construction by extending their credit lines and continuing to fund the project.
In September of 1873, the line from Charlotte to Atlanta was fully completed. After financial trouble with the company overseeing the project, in February of 1877, the railway was reorganized and re-named the Atlanta and Charlotte Air Line Railway, finalizing the project. Alpharetta was positioned as a strategic and convenient city within the newly expanded railway system. The railroad line brought in a new era of transformation for Alpharetta through new opportunities in trading, travel, and centralized connection that helped Alpharetta become a key city for regional commerce for people traveling to and from Atlanta.
New opportunities soon brought new businesses, homes, and further industry diversification to strengthen the local economy. The Atlanta and Charlotte Air Line Railway refreshed Alpharetta with new faces, ideas, and goods, reinvigorating the economy with a newfound energy that would soon catapult the city to an explosive period of growth. The railroad ushered in a boom of the city’s population as more travelers came to Alpharetta seeking new opportunities and the convenience of railway travel, marking the beginning of Alpharetta’s era of rapid urbanization.
Immigrants construct the framework of Alpharetta’s culture
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, immigrants flocked to the region initially drawn to the area by job opportunities in the area’s textile mills. With immigration came innovation. The Germans, Irish, English, and Scottish enriched the local economy through their previously unknown and unique agricultural methods that would help innovate and diversify the agricultural sector in Alpharetta, giving them more ways to grow.
Although initially facing pushback and discrimination, their unwavering tenacity and undeniable contributions led to their acceptance into the community. To this day, individuals from other cultures play a vital role in enriching and adding to the spirit of Alpharetta as they always have. Immigrants also made key contributions in the business sector through their entrepreneurial spirit, opening retail stores, restaurants, grocery stores, and other businesses that would provide more money and jobs to the local community.
When did Alpharetta join Fulton County?
Fast forward to 1932, Alpharetta faced tough times again along with the rest of the nation during The Great Depression while still recovering from Boll Weevil Invasions and the aftershocks of both the Civil War and World War I. The challenges for Alpharetta proved nearly insurmountable for such a young city trying to get its footing that relied heavily on its strained fledgling economy. So, in 1932, Alpharetta became a part of Fulton County to secure its future of providing services and continuing its streak of prosperity.
The merging of Alpharetta into Fulton County provided relief for its citizens through lower taxes, improved schools and educational facilities, and paved roads. Not too long after Alpharetta joined Fulton County, World War II started in 1939 and lasted until 1945, forcing citizens to turn their attention to the war efforts. After World War II ended, Alpharetta’s agricultural economy expanded past cotton to include livestock and food crops. This expansion in Alpharetta’s agricultural economy helped lay the foundation for the city’s future success. Agricultural diversification stabilized their economy, making Alpharetta less susceptible to unforeseen issues like the Boll Weevil invasion that hit their cotton supply in the mid-1800s.
Alpharetta undergoes early stage urbanization
Alpharetta continued to blossom into a small but much more advanced agrarian community going into the mid-20th century, venturing more into more crops like corn, wheat, peaches, tobacco, cattle, pigs and chickens. As the city advanced further through the stages of urbanization, so did the farming sector. Smaller family farms were replaced by larger, more efficient, streamlined production facilities. Along with the larger facilities came advancements out on the field with the introduction of pesticides in the 1950s and fertilizer in the early-mid 20th century, a duo that would garner higher crop yields and further increase farming efficiency. Alpharetta entered yet another realm of growth potential result of larger-scale production and technological advancements to their farming system.
The city sought to maximize its earning potential and further diversify, so it partly turned its focus to more profitable crops like peanuts and soybeans. From the 1950s to the 1970s Alpharetta grew into a formidable agrarian city as genetically modified crops were later introduced along with precision farming techniques. This newfound growth from the 1950s-1970s attracted a significant amount of new African American residents who sought out the promising economic opportunities of the fast-growing city of Alpharetta. Alpharetta’s blend of countless cultures and communities from all walks of life helped lay a strong culturally and economically diverse foundation that would carry into the far more advanced city we call home today.
GA 400 and I-285 turn Alpharetta into today’s “Tech Hub of the South”
Behind the scenes of all the new development was the most significant factor that catalyzed Alpharetta’s truly explosive growth, Georgia’s highway expansion. In 1958, plans for the construction of I-285 were conceived with the highway projected to be completed in 1965. In 1962, the plans were pushed out 3 years with a new completion date slated for sometime in 1968 and 2 years later the date moved, yet again, to 1972.
Despite the new date being pushed out for the second time, the construction of I-285 was finished ahead of schedule in 1969. $96.9 million and 63 miles of road construction later, the Perimeter around Atlanta was open to the public in 1969. Along with I-285, plans for GA 400 were approved in 1957 and would bring a 15.9-mile-long highway from Johnson Ferry Road to Forsyth County north of I-285. The planning was spearheaded by Turner McDonald, Director of the Fulton County Public Works Department from 1947 to 1980 with the project also referred to as the North Fulton Expressway or the Appalachian Developmental Highway.
The Johnson Ferry Road to Forsyth County portion was completed in 1971 and open for travel, but the extension of GA 400 between Buckhead and I-285 came much later on August 1st, 1993. A toll was placed in 1993 for the Buckhead 400 section until 2013 to recoup the cost of the project in the form of toll revenue from travelers. In the late 1980s, GA 400 was widened from 4 to 8 lanes from I-285 to Holcomb Bridge Road, and to 6 lanes from Holcomb Bridge Road to Haynes Bridge Road. The widening of GA 400 was in response to the massive amounts of growth that the highway brought to the North Fulton and South Forsyth areas.
The North Fulton/South Forsyth areas continued to flourish, so GA 400 was widened again in 2005 from 6 to 8 lanes from Holcomb Bridge Road to McFarland Parkway. The introduction of both I-285 and GA 400 grew Alpharetta immensely from a larger predominantly textile and agriculturally-based community to what is now considered the “technology hub of the South” that employs over 100,000 Georgia residents. Alpharetta is Georgia’s 12th most populous city today and has grown from 3,000 residents in 1980 to over 67,000 residents today. Due to its growth, Alpharetta is able to hold numerous events throughout the year that bring large crowds of Alpharetta residents together. However, the Southern agrarian roots of old Alpharetta still echo throughout the city, charming new residents of “new” Alpharetta with the same allure that once captivated the first settlers of this unmatched Georgia town.