WEST END ATLANTA

    The area known as West End began developing in 1830 and was at that time known as the village of White Hall (the name of a tavern in the area, which was painted white).  By 1835, the current intersection of RDA (Ralph David Abernathy) Boulevard and Lee Street had become the center of White Hall. This crossroads is considered the oldest intersection in Atlanta. Thus began RDA Boulevard’s long history of being the commercial core of the area. The Western and Atlantic Railroad came through the area in 1837 and the Macon and Western Railroad came through in 1846. The rail lines also spurred development in the area and Atlanta became a major transportation hub. The railroads lines ran south, east, and west of the district.

Starting in 1855, George Washington Adair, and other developers began to buy property in the area and subdivide it for development. In 1868, the name of White Hall was changed to the more “fashionable” West End (named after London’s theater district). At the same time West End was incorporated as an independent city. The Hammonds House (1859) and the Wren’s Nest (1867) are existing buildings that date from this period.

In 1871, G.W. Adair and Richard Peters, owners of the Atlanta Street Railroad Company, brought Atlanta’s first horse-drawn trolley line to the area via White Hall Street. The intent was to promote the development of Mr. Adair’s property. The development of West End was parts of Atlanta’s post Civil War boosterism efforts to become the “New South” and to redefine itself. Its developers promoted the area as an upper-middle class suburb. Streets were named after prominent Southerners (i.e., Lee, Ashby, Gordon, and Lawton). Blacks were excluded from the town limits, as well as manufacturing facilities.

The West End and Atlanta Street Railway Company, a competitor of Adair’s company expanded its line in 1884 along Lucile Avenue to Gordon Road and out to Westview Cemetery. As promoted by the Adair Realty Company and others, this area was becoming a white middle and upper class suburb with easy access to Atlanta. In 1894, the area was annexed into the rapidly growing city of Atlanta, becoming Atlanta’s Seventh Ward.  

Although sparsely developed until that time, there were estates, commercial properties, and smaller dwellings located on RDA Boulevard running west from Lee Street. By the turn of the century, the streets perpendicular to RDA Boulevard had been developed into residential areas. Evans, Ashby, Gordon and Lee Streets and Oglethorpe Avenue were developed in grid pattern with small lots containing one and two-story Folk Victorian style houses. The rest of West End developed to the north, south, and west in the 1910s and 1920s, with slightly larger lots on a grid-iron pattern. It was also during this time when several large estates were subdivided and developed. According to the 1928 U.S.G.S topographical map of Atlanta, West End was nearly completely developed.

Building construction appears to have slowed considerably from 1930 to 1945, due to the economic depression of the 1930s followed by the World War II. The only major building constructed was the 1931 Stripped Classical style Southern Bell Company of the Raymond Exchange on RDA Boulevard (one of several Southern Bell Company buildings constructed during this period in Atlanta). After the end of World War II, construction began again along RDA Boulevard. Older commercial and some residential buildings were torn down and replaced by more modern, brick one story, freestanding buildings with flat roofs, glass storefronts, and little or no detailing. The Art Deco –style Gordon Street Motion picture and the adjacent International style commercial and professional building were both built during this period. This “face lift” of RDA Boulevard continued until the early 1950s when financial investment in the neighborhood ended and suburbanization and “white flight” began; a trend in intown neighborhoods throughout Atlanta and the South.

In 1952 the West End Baptist Church, designed by Nashville, Tennessee, architect Thomas W. Gardner, was completed. This building represents the last major financial investment into West End as white neighborhood. This date also corresponds with Atlanta Boards of Realtors 1952 unofficial designation of certain neighborhoods as “white” or “black”. The so called color line was Ashby Street and West End was the only white neighborhood west of the color line, a designation that would not be sustained with the advent of black settlement in the area.

By the mid 1960s, the once white suburb was becoming a majority black neighborhood. West End once again was transformed in the late 1960s when Interstate I-20 was constructed north of RDA Boulevard separating the north portion of West End (including the historically black Atlanta University Campus and black residential areas) from the south with hundreds of buildings being lost in between. According to Ronald H. Bayor in “Race and the Shaping of Twentieth Century Atlanta” the building of the interstates to separate black and white areas was one way to carry on legalized segregation of neighborhoods. As part of this mid 1960s urban redevelopment project, several parks were established, including West End Park. At the same time West End Mall was built in the eastern part of the district at the historic intersection of Lee Street and RDA Boulevard. In 1961 West End’s Joseph Brown School was one of Atlanta’s first integrated schools.

In 1974, neighborhood residents formed the West End Neighborhood Development, Inc. (WEND) with a goal of improving the socioeconomic position of their community and residents. WEND has sponsored an annual tour of homes, a yearly festival in Howell Park and a driving tour booklet highlighting neighborhood homes and cultural and religious centers to increase awareness of their neighborhood.

Gordon Street was renamed Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard in 1991 in honor of the civil rights activist who succeeded Martin Luther King, Jr. as president of Southern Christian Leadership Conference. During the 1970s and 1980s, modern commercial development followed the construction of the interstate and the mall. In the early 1980s. a MARTA line now provides the eastern boundary of the neighborhood.

West End was designated a local Historic District by the City of Atlanta on November 7, 1991. The designation as a Historic District is intended to keep construction and renovation standards in line with neighborhood’s existing architecture. The District’s boundaries were expanded on the north to I-20 and on the south and west by another designation in 2002. The expansion of the Historic District insures that locally designated Historic District’s boundaries match those of the nationally designated nationally designated National Register District. West End was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Today, the neighborhood is employing new urbanism principles and transit oriented development, historic preservation standards, heritage tourism tools, and WEND’s vision to protect the fabric of the neighborhood from insensitive development and rehabilitation.