Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1880s-1930s

Chapter 59: 1881

CHAPTER 59 1881 James W. English, the losing candidate of two* years before, emerged the victor this time, with 1,433 votes against 1,379 for Hannibal I. Kimball. Banker Robert J. Lowry won the post of alderman-at-large over A. N. Watson, a colored citizen, by the decisive vote of 2,706 to 93.l New councilmen elected at the same time were: First ward, Albinus J. Pinson; second ward, Reginald H. Knapp; third ward, David A. Beatie; fourth ward, Jack W. Johnson; fifth ward, Warren D. Payne. On July 4, 1881, the following officers were elected by council: clerk, J. H. Goldsmith; treasurer, Robert M. Farrar; marshal, Walthall R. Joyner; auditor and recorder, Howell C. Glenn; city attorney, W. T. Newman; city engineer, Robert M. Clayton; tax receiver and collector, J. A. Anderson; sexton, William A. Bonnell, and hall keeper, Jacob Morris.2 It was during the year he was elected mayor, 1880, that Captain English built his two-and-a-half-story red brick residence at 34, later 40, Cone Street. This home, long a downtown landmark, was one of the first in Atlanta to be equipped with electric lights and a telephone. Given a choice between the Cone Street lot and another on Peachtree, Mrs. English chose the former, because she said that here her men would come home to dinner, and she wanted them three times a day. And so the house became, and remained, a center of life for the family and their friends.3 It was occupied by Captain English to the end of his long life in 1925. A crying need of the city at the time Mayor English took over in 1881 was that of street paving. The new chief executive started the ball rolling by appointing John Berkele, Michael E. Maher and William H. Venable as a Board of Commissioners of Streets and Sewers. The era of paved streets was soon to begin.4 It was high time, if we may judge from some pungent observations published by the Constitution on January 7, 1881: "OUR STREETS AND THEIR MISERABLE CONDITION What one of our reporters on stilts saw on his travels through mud and slush— the probable remedy that will be applied by our City Fathers. "Yesterday when the managing editor instructed a mud-bespattered reporter to write up the condition of the streets, the young man was bewildered with the immensity of the undertaking. "He walked to the window and gazed for a full quarter of a minute at the scene which Broad Street presented. This macadamized thoroughfare was half a leg deep in mud and the black loblolly left by the thawed snow made the street look like the sluggish waters of a filthy canal. It was so all over the business part of the town. At the car shed the water and mud ran in and formed a most unsightly and disgusting spectacle. Pryor Street crossing is awful to behold, and when the pedestrian reaches the corner of Hunter and HE ELECTION FOR MAYIR HELD dECEMBER 1,1880, WAS CLOSE AND SPIRITED T 16 ATLANTA AND ITS ENVIRONS Pryor he is simply dumbfounded. Yesterday a gentleman who was coming up into the city reached this delectable place and there he halted. He was dressed in what was evidently his Sunday best, and his shoes shone as only an Atlantan 's shoes will shine when he starts somewhere. The gentleman hesitated (Courtesy Atlanta Historical Society) Fulton County Court-House, as it appeared about 1890, erected 1881 and replaced by present building on same sitef 1914 awhile, and finally gave a negro fifteen cents to take him up bodily and carry him over the mud. This actually occurred. "Hunter Street is in a bad condition, and in bad weather is a source of much trouble to funeral processions and parties who visit the cemetery for any purpose, and the cemetery [Oakland], in the absence of a park, is quite popular with those of our citizens who enjoy a pleasant stroll. "Pryor Street has always given the city much trouble and there are portions of it now which would be better for a little work. THE EIGHTEEN-EIGHTIES 17 "Peters Street is known all over the city as a disgrace to Atlanta so far as its condition is concerned. The numerous holes in the street have proven a source of great annoyance to farmers and wagons from...