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Grant Park (Atlanta)
Encyclopedia
Grant Park refers to the oldest city
park
in Atlanta, Georgia
, United States
, as well as the Victorian
neighborhood surrounding it.
, Freedom Park
and Piedmont Park
. Grant Park has two major attractions besides the park itself: Zoo Atlanta
, established in 1889 and originally known as the Grant Park Zoo; and the Atlanta Cyclorama
, a cyclorama
featuring the 1864 Battle of Atlanta
from the American Civil War
. The park serves over two million visitors per year.
Grant Park was established in 1882 when Lemuel P. Grant
, a successful engineer
and businessman, gave the city of Atlanta 100 acres (40.5 ha) in the newly-developed "suburb
" where he lived. In 1890, the city acquired another 44 acres (17.8 ha) for the park and appointed its first park commissioner, Sidney Root
. In 1903, the Olmsted Brothers
(sons of Frederick Law Olmsted
) were hired to create a plan for the park. The original park included a lake named Lake Abana to handle storm-water runoff.
A failed circus
gave birth to the eventual Zoo Atlanta when local lumber
merchant George Gress purchased animals from the circus and donated them to the city in 1889. The city decided Grant Park was the best location for the zoo
and carved space out for the attraction. Later zoo expansions and parking requirements caused the removal of a portion of the lake
. In 1892, the circular painting
of the Battle of Atlanta was exhibited
in the park. The cyclorama would eventually gain its own dedicated building in the park in 1921.
After years of neglect and abuse, in 1996 the City of Atlanta Parks Bureau commissioned a new master plan
for the park. The consultant
s working on the plan met with a citizen advisory group that would eventually become the Grant Park Conservancy. The Conservancy works to raise funds to enhance and protect the park for the enjoyment of all its visitors.
neighborhood surrounding the Park, is Atlanta's largest historic neighborhood. It borders the Cabbagetown
neighborhood on the north, Ormewood Park
on the east, Boulevard Heights
on the southeast, Chosewood Park
on the south, and Summerhill
and Peoplestown
on the west.
It includes the 48 acre
s or 35 hectare
s of Oakland Cemetery (established 1850), where Margaret Mitchell
, Bobby Jones
, 25 former mayors of Atlanta, six former governors of Georgia, and many Civil War dead are buried. It also includes the Atlanta Stockade, Fort Walker
, and the Grant Mansion for which the area was named. The Grant Park Neighborhood Association represents local residents.
The neighborhood is home to St. Paul United Methodist Church
, which for a time in the early 1900s had the largest Methodist congregation in the Southeast, and which continues to be a thriving congregation. St. Paul is well known for its beautiful stained glass
windows and an organ
that was acquired in 1887. Each December, St. Paul, the Grant Park Cooperative Preschool (which is located on the first floor of St. Paul) and the Grant Park Parent Network], host the Grant Park Candlelight Tour of Homes and Artist Market. There is also a Tour of Homes in the autumn sponsored by the Grant Park Neighborhood Association.
Preschool Programs
Churches
Schools
Maps
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
in Atlanta, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as well as the Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
neighborhood surrounding it.
Park
Grant Park is the fourth-largest in the city, behind Chastain ParkChastain Park
Chastain Memorial Park, most commonly called Chastain Park, is the largest city park in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a park located near the northern edge of the city...
, Freedom Park
Freedom Park (Atlanta)
Freedom Park is one of the largest city parks in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The park forms a cross shape with the axes crossing at the Carter Center...
and Piedmont Park
Piedmont Park
Piedmont Park is a urban park in Atlanta, Georgia, located about northeast of Downtown, between the Midtown and Virginia Highland neighborhoods. Originally the land was owned by Dr. Benjamin Walker, who used it as his out-of-town gentleman's farm and residence...
. Grant Park has two major attractions besides the park itself: Zoo Atlanta
Zoo Atlanta
Zoo Atlanta is an Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited zoological park in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1889, the Zoo is Atlanta’s oldest cultural destination and is one of the oldest continuously operating zoological institutions in the United States.Zoo Atlanta houses over 1,300 animals...
, established in 1889 and originally known as the Grant Park Zoo; and the Atlanta Cyclorama
Atlanta Cyclorama
The Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum is a civil war museum located in Atlanta, its most noted attraction being the Atlanta Cyclorama, a cylindrical panoramic painting of the American Civil War Battle of Atlanta...
, a cyclorama
Cyclorama
For the classical album Cyclorama, see Jonathan Goldstein; For the rock album Cyclorama by Styx, see Cyclorama ; for the theatrical backdrop, see Cyclorama...
featuring the 1864 Battle of Atlanta
Battle of Atlanta
The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William T. Sherman overwhelmed...
from the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The park serves over two million visitors per year.
History
Lemuel P. Grant
Lemuel Pratt Grant was an American engineer and businessman.He was Atlanta's quintessential railroad man as well as a major landowner and civic leader....
, a successful engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
and businessman, gave the city of Atlanta 100 acres (40.5 ha) in the newly-developed "suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
" where he lived. In 1890, the city acquired another 44 acres (17.8 ha) for the park and appointed its first park commissioner, Sidney Root
Sidney Root
Sidney Root an American businessman.Root was born in Montague in western Massachusetts, but early in his life his family moved to Vermont, where his boyhood days were spent in the shadow of the Green Mountains. On his father's plantation he acquired the industrious habits which characterized him...
. In 1903, the Olmsted Brothers
Olmsted Brothers
The Olmsted Brothers company was an influential landscape design firm in the United States, formed in 1898 by stepbrothers John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. .-History:...
(sons of Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
) were hired to create a plan for the park. The original park included a lake named Lake Abana to handle storm-water runoff.
A failed circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
gave birth to the eventual Zoo Atlanta when local lumber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
merchant George Gress purchased animals from the circus and donated them to the city in 1889. The city decided Grant Park was the best location for the zoo
Zoo
A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....
and carved space out for the attraction. Later zoo expansions and parking requirements caused the removal of a portion of the lake
Lake
A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...
. In 1892, the circular painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
of the Battle of Atlanta was exhibited
Art exhibition
Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or...
in the park. The cyclorama would eventually gain its own dedicated building in the park in 1921.
After years of neglect and abuse, in 1996 the City of Atlanta Parks Bureau commissioned a new master plan
Plan
A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with timing and resources, used to achieve an objective. See also strategy. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal...
for the park. The consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
s working on the plan met with a citizen advisory group that would eventually become the Grant Park Conservancy. The Conservancy works to raise funds to enhance and protect the park for the enjoyment of all its visitors.
Neighborhood
Grant Park, the intownIntown Atlanta
Intown Atlanta is a term very frequently used in metro Atlanta to designate an area containing parts of the City of Atlanta and bordering communities...
neighborhood surrounding the Park, is Atlanta's largest historic neighborhood. It borders the Cabbagetown
Cabbagetown (Atlanta)
Cabbagetown is a neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia located south of Inman Park, east of Oakland Cemetery, north of Grant Park and west of Reynoldstown. It includes Cabbagetown District, a historic district listed on the U.S...
neighborhood on the north, Ormewood Park
Ormewood Park
Ormewood Park is a neighborhood located east-southeast within the Downtown Atlanta area of Atlanta, Georgia. Ormewood Park is east of Grant Park, south of Reynoldstown, west of East Atlanta, and north of East Confederate Street....
on the east, Boulevard Heights
Boulevard Heights
Boulevard Heights is an urban neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia located south of East Confederate Avenue, east of Boulevard, north of Entrenchment Creek and west of the State of Georgia complex. The area is currently undergoing redevelopment to add single family homes and light commercial premises....
on the southeast, Chosewood Park
Chosewood Park
Chosewood Park is a neighborhood in southeast Atlanta, Georgia. It is located south of Peoplestown and Grant Park, west of Boulevard Heights and Benteen Park, northwest of Thomasville Heights and the Atlanta federal penitentiary, and northeast of South Atlanta and Lakewood Heights...
on the south, and Summerhill
Summerhill (Atlanta)
Summerhill is a neighborhood directly south of Downtown Atlanta between the Atlanta Zoo and Turner Field. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Grant Park, Mechanicsville, and Peoplestown. Summerhill is one of 26 Atlanta neighborhoods making up the Atlanta Neighborhood Planning Unit system...
and Peoplestown
Peoplestown
Peoplestown is a Victorian streetcar-era neighborhood just south of Turner Field and central Atlanta. It is bounded by:* Ormond Street and the Summerhill neighborhood on the north,* Hill Street and the Grant Park neighborhood on the east,...
on the west.
It includes the 48 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s or 35 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
s of Oakland Cemetery (established 1850), where Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was an American author and journalist. Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937 for her epic American Civil War era novel, Gone with the Wind, which was the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.-Family:Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta,...
, Bobby Jones
Bobby Jones (golfer)
Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones Jr. was an American amateur golfer, and a lawyer by profession. Jones was the most successful amateur golfer ever to compete on a national and international level...
, 25 former mayors of Atlanta, six former governors of Georgia, and many Civil War dead are buried. It also includes the Atlanta Stockade, Fort Walker
Fort Walker
Fort Walker was a Civil War redoubt located on what is now the southeastern corner of Grant Park in Atlanta, Georgia.-History:The redoubt was built by Confederate forces in 1863....
, and the Grant Mansion for which the area was named. The Grant Park Neighborhood Association represents local residents.
The neighborhood is home to St. Paul United Methodist Church
St. Paul United Methodist Church (Grant Park -- Atlanta)
St. Paul United Methodist Church is located in the historic Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. For a time in the early 1900s, St. Paul had the largest Methodist congregation in the Southeastern United States. The church organ was acquired at the Cotton States Exhibition in 1887. St....
, which for a time in the early 1900s had the largest Methodist congregation in the Southeast, and which continues to be a thriving congregation. St. Paul is well known for its beautiful stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
windows and an organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
that was acquired in 1887. Each December, St. Paul, the Grant Park Cooperative Preschool (which is located on the first floor of St. Paul) and the Grant Park Parent Network], host the Grant Park Candlelight Tour of Homes and Artist Market. There is also a Tour of Homes in the autumn sponsored by the Grant Park Neighborhood Association.
External links
- Grant Park Neighborhood Association
- Grant Park Conservancy
- Historic Oakland Foundation
- Zoo Atlanta
- Grant Park Summer Shade Festival
- Grant Park Parent Network
- Grant Park Parents Yahoo Group
- Atlanta, Georgia, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
Preschool Programs
Churches
Schools
Maps