1874

A new city charter increased the radius of the city from one to one and a half miles, reduced the number of wards

Atlanta ward system

From its incorporation in 1848, the municipal boundaries Atlanta, Georgia were extended repeatedly from a small area around its railroad station to today's city covering .Prior to 1954, Atlanta was divided into political divisions called wards...

 back to five and created a bi-cameral council of two councilmen from each ward and a second body of three at-large aldermen was established.

The new Fourth ward layout was from Pryor and tracks east on Georgia RR to city limits then north west to West Peachtree and south to origin. Two councilmen would be elected from each ward each year.

John H. Flynn	1874	Julius C. Watkins
	1875	John S. Garmany

In late 1875, an ordinance passed where each year one councilman would be elected from each ward for a two year term. The first year, 1876 just had one city-wide alderman and a single councilman from each ward and they would be fully staffed two years later.

Even year elections	Year	Odd year elections
Dr. Samuel Hape	1876	none
	1877	Charles K. Maddox
John H. Flynn	1878
	1879	William H. Patterson
Thomas J. Boyd	1880
	1881	Jack W. Johnson
William H. Howell	1882

1883

On November 5, 1883 a Sixth Ward (beige) was carved out of the Fourth and Fifth Wards. The Fourth lost the entire Peachtree St corridor leaving a district of working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 citizens: Germans and Jews to the north and Blacks to the south. Before 1910, the ward had become almost exclusively Black centered around Sweet Auburn

Sweet Auburn

The Sweet Auburn Historic District is a historic African-American neighborhood along Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia. The name Sweet Auburn was coined by John Wesley Dobbs, referring to the "richest Negro street in the world". The Sweet Auburn district includes:*the Martin Luther King, Jr...

 and a large portion of it was destroyed in the Great Atlanta fire of 1917

Great Atlanta fire of 1917

The Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 began just after noon on Monday, May 21 and was finally extinguished by 10 PM. Destroyed were 300 acres , including nearly 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, and 10,000 people were displaced. There was only one fatality, a woman who suffered a heart attack after...

.

Even year elections	Year	Odd year elections
William H. Howell	1883	Benjamin F. Longley
M. Micklebery	1884
	1885	Edwin F. May
Allison L. Greene	1886
	1887	Levi B. Nelson Levi B. Nelson Levi Buell Nelson , was an Atlanta, Georgia city councilman, founder of the Gate City Street Railroad Company....
Sampson A. Morris	1888
	1889	J.S. McLendon
J.C. Hendrix	1890
	1891	C.E. Murphey
William P. Hill	1892
	1893	W.R. Dimmock
William J. Campbell	1894
	1895	John A. Miller
Sampson A. Morris	1896
	1897	George P. Howard
William S. Thomson	1898
	1899	John S. Parks
William M. Terry	1900
	1901	Henry F. Garrett
J. Frank Beck	1902
	1903	McDonald M. Turner
Alexander C. Bruce	1904
	1905	Frank O. Foster
Edgar E. Pomeroy	1906
	1907	Dr. Benjamin E. Pearce