Estoria Street

Estoria Street is a street in Cabbagetown. It runs north-south, between Wylie Street (where it becomes Krog Street) and Memorial Drive. It's had this name since 1893.

Estoria Street on Google Maps

Other Names

Estora Street (1892 variant)
New Street (before Estora/Estoria)

Name Origins

Estoria Street was named for Estora Fitzgerald Stephens (c. 1867-1889). She was born in Atlanta to John Stephens (1833-1896), an Irish immigrant, and Annie Elizabeth Fitzgerald (1846-1934), of Clayton County, Georgia. Little is known about Estora's life or even the cause of her death at the young age of about 22. We do know from her obituary that her funeral was held at the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, still an active church and downtown Atlanta's second oldest building (built 1869). We also know from the same source that she was buried in Oakland Cemetery, where her headstone can be found today.

Estora Stephens headstone in Oakland Cemetery
(Credit: Find A Grave)

Estora grew up in a prominent family and probably lived the good life. Her father served as a captain in the Confederate army, and after the Civil War, became a successful businessman. Her mother was the daughter of a planter. One of her younger sisters, Mary Isabelle "Maybelle" Stephens, married Eugene M. Mitchell, an Atlanta attorney. Their daughter, Margaret M. Mitchell, penned one of the most famous Southern novels, Gone With the Wind, which features Clayton County and Atlanta during the Civil War. Many believe that Scarlett O'Hara, the book's protagonist, was based on Margaret's grandmother (Estora's mother), Annie Fitzgerald.

Margaret's brother, Alexander Stephens Mitchell, was (among many things) editor of the Atlanta Historical Society Bulletin and a street names enthusiast. His research, some of which is archived at the Atlanta History Center, provided an early reference to the connection between his late Aunt Estora and Estoria Street.

Sources:
Obituary for Estora Stephens, Atlanta Constitution, November 6, 1889 (transcription)
Stephens Mitchell manuscripts, Atlanta History Center

Name Sightings

Estoria Street first appears in the 1892 Saunders Atlanta City Directory (p. 179) as Estora Street, lacking the "i" and reflecting the spelling of its namesake. Almost immediately, the street became known by its present-day spelling of "Estoria," as displayed in the 1893 Saunders ACD (p. 179) and the 1892 Koch map.

In a 1903 article in the Atlanta Constitution, real estate developer Forrest Adair claimed that Estoria Street was formerly known as New Street, but we could not find any references to this name in older city directories. Perhaps Adair was mistaken or this was an unofficial name for the street.

Piedmont Avenue

Piedmont Avenue is a street running north-south from Downtown to Piedmont Heights. It originates at Capitol Avenue, near the Georgia State Capitol, and ends at Cheshire Bridge Road, where it becomes Piedmont Road. It's had this name since at least 1892. Before that, it was known as Calhoun Street.

Piedmont Avenue on Google Maps

Other Names

Piedmont Road (north of Cheshire Bridge Road)
Calhoun Street (before 1892)

Name Origins

Piedmont Avenue was likely named for the Piedmont Exposition, held in October 1887, the second of three major expositions in Atlanta in the late 19th century. Earlier that year, the Gentleman's Driving Club (now the Piedmont Driving Club) purchased 189 acres of land from Dr. Benjamin Walker, whose family had farmed it since the 1830s. The Driving Club then leased the land to the Piedmont Exposition Company, a group of Atlanta businessmen seeking to organize a regional exposition. To prepare the land, organizers cleared an entire forest and built several large structures, including a 570-foot-long main building and a horse racing track, in just over 100 days. The event was a marked success, drawing 50,000 attendees to a speech by U.S. President Grover Cleveland in a city whose entire 1890 population was around 65,000. It also set the stage for Atlanta to host a world's fair on the same (improved) grounds in 1895.

The Piedmont Exposition main building
(Credit: Harper's Weekly, October 1887)

But why "Piedmont"? The exposition's purpose, according to Wallace Reed, an early Atlanta historian, was "to collect together the evidences of the resources of the Piedmont region of the Southern States, including Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee." So we can trace the origin of "Piedmont" here, in reference to the Southern Piedmont region of the United States.

In 1904, the Driving Club sold the land to the City of Atlanta, which established it as Piedmont Park. Piedmont Avenue forms the park's western border, and it's considered "Atlanta's Central Park," though it's neither the city's oldest park (Grant Park, established 1895) nor its largest park (Chastain Park, at 268 acres).

Sources:
Newman, Harvey K. (2010). Cotton Expositions in Atlanta, New Georgia Encyclopedia.
Reed, Wallace P. (1889). History of Atlanta, Georgia. D. Mason & Co. (p. 476)

Name Sightings

The earliest reference I can find to Piedmont Avenue is the 1892 Koch map, where it is incorrectly spelled "Piedmond." It also appears in the Saunders Atlanta City Directory that same year (p. 289). A city directory from the previous year, 1891, has no listing for Piedmont Avenue and shows Calhoun Street extending from the Georgia Railroad to the northern city limits. This suggests that Piedmont Avenue first appeared in 1892, just a few years after the Piedmont Exposition of 1887.

Related Streets

Fair Street, named for another Atlanta exposition.

Elizabeth Street

The inaugural ASNP entry. Let me know what y'all think. Here goes nothing! -Kurt

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Elizabeth Street is a street in Inman Park. It runs north-south from Freedom Park to Dekalb Avenue. It's had this name since at least 1889.

Elizabeth Street on Google Maps

Other Names

Elizabeth Avenue (1890s variant)

Name Origins

Elizabeth Street was named for Mary Elizabeth Hurt Jones (1824-1882), who once owned the Joel Hurt Cottage on Elizabeth Street, one of the oldest homes still standing in Atlanta. Elizabeth Jones's first cousin was the father of Inman Park developer Joel Hurt. In the early 1870s, Elizabeth and her husband, James Vickers Jones, moved to Atlanta and built a house in the heart of modern-day Inman Park. James died in 1879 and Elizabeth sold the house and property to Joel Hurt in June 1882. She died just a few weeks later at age 58 and was buried in the Hurt-Jones family plot in Oakland Cemetery.

The Joel Hurt Cottage c. 1890
(Credit: Tommy Jones)

The legacy of Elizabeth's house continued long after her life. In the late 1880s, Joel Hurt enlarged and remodeled the house in the Queen Anne architectural style. It's believed that Hurt and his family lived there from 1887 until 1904, when they moved to a newly built mansion at 167 Elizabeth St. NE. Elizabeth Jones's house, located at 117 Elizabeth St. NE, is known today as the Joel Hurt Cottage.

Sources:
Jones, Tommy H. Joel Hurt Cottage.
Marr, Christine, and Sharon Foster Jones. (2008). Inman Park (Images of America: Georgia). Arcadia. (p. 12)

Name Sightings

The earliest sighting of Elizabeth Street I've made is in Polk's 1889 Atlanta City Directory (p. 179). It's first listed as Elizabeth Avenue, though by the early 1900s the name settled into the present Elizabeth Street. There's no mention of the street in Polk's 1888 ACD, suggesting the street was first named in 1889. Possibly Joel was moved to name a street in honor of his cousin after she passed away in 1882.

Related Streets

Hurt Street is directly east of Elizabeth Street and runs parallel.