In February of 1866, Georgia’s General Assembly chartered the Atlanta Street Railway Company. The company formed was lead by George Hillyer, Dr. John G. Westmoreland, and J.J Thrasher. Hillyer would later become mayor of Atlanta in 1884. Westmoreland was the founder of the Atlanta Medical College, and Thrasher was a merchant prominent during the Reconstruction period (Martin 1975:1). Paving requirements and restrictions were imposed on the new streetcar company. These impositions hampered any construction of street rail in Atlanta until 1871 when the charter was sold. By 1869, city council relaxed some of the requirements initial placed on the company. Two prominent real estate developers purchased the charter in April 1871.
Richard Peters and Col. George W. Adair took over Atlanta’s first streetcar company. The first horse drawn line began operation on September 8, 1871 and extended from the city’s center to Peters Street near the present location of Spellman College. The “West End” line was routed past Peters’ house on Mitchell and Forsyth and initially ended behind Adair’s home opposite the historic location of the Fort McPherson Barracks. The route was extended in 1874 to the community of West End (Carson 1981:3).
The Atlanta Street Railway Company would construct a total of six service lines between 1871 and 1891. The Marietta Street route opened in January of 1872 ending near the intersection with North Avenue and later extended to the intersection of Sixth Street and Marietta. Service on the Decatur Street line began in May of 1872 terminating at the north entrance of Oakland Cemetery and extended to Boulevard in 1888 and again in 1891 to Cornelia Street.
The Peachtree Street line opened in August 1872 with service terminating at Pine Street. By 1874, this line was extended to the present intersection of Peachtree Street and Ponce de Leon Ave. Since the Ponce de Leon Avenue did not exist at the time, the rail line traveled east on a private right-of-way to Ponce de Leon Springs, a popular seasonal recreation spot in the lands beyond the city. This east segment featured the Clear Creek Bridge and garnered an additional five cents on top of the normal fare. By the end of the corporate history of the Atlanta Street Railway Company, the Peachtree Street Line extended from the Ponce de Leon Springs line to north to Piedmont Park. The Taylor Hill line began in March of 1873 and was terminated a year later due to lack of ridership. The Washington-McDonough line began operating in May of 1873, linking the downtown rail junction with points south. The Whitehall Street line (1874) had ran for a short time south to McDaniel Street but was merged with the service to the West End in 1882 (Martin 1975:1-10, Carson 1981:2-8).
Establishing mule-drawn streetcar service produced a number of outcomes critical to the expansion of Atlanta’s’ urban fabric. Adair’s and Peters’ investment in streetcar produced a viable industry in the economically depressed Georgia Capital, spurring competition and expanding service throughout the city. The men’s investments in the rail company also supplemented their interests in real estate speculation in Atlanta’s periphery. Their developments in streetcar service and real estate established suburban settlement patterns that shaped the urban landscape of Atlanta for years to come (Klima 1982:78,Preston 1979:77).