Part 3 (1/2)

Transportation.

Atlanta is the railroad center of the Southeast. Twelve radiating lines furnish ample facilities for distribution of manufactures and merchandise from this point. Five of these lines belong to the Southern Railway. Here is a list of the lines:

Southern to Was.h.i.+ngton.

Southern to Knoxville.

Georgia Railroad to Augusta.

Southern to Birmingham.

Southern to Fort Valley.

Southern to Brunswick.

[2]Seaboard Air Line to Birmingham.

Seaboard Air Line to Portsmouth.

Western & Atlantic to Chattanooga.

Atlanta & West Point to Montgomery.

Central of Georgia Railway to Savannah.

Louisville & Nashville to Knoxville.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARNEGIE LIBRARY.]

The connections of these make many more routes over which there are through trains, as for example, to Columbus and Albany.

The Southern Railway, Central of Georgia Railway, and Atlanta and West Point Railway have let the contract for a union pa.s.senger station at the corner of Mitch.e.l.l and Madison streets, and will spend about a million dollars on the structure. Altogether they will spend two millions on the station and terminal facilities connected with it.

Atlanta's hotel accommodations are superior to those of almost any other city in the South. The Piedmont is a fire-proof building of the best cla.s.s, with steel frame. The Kimball, the Aragon, the Majestic, and the Marion have long enjoyed an enviable reputation with the traveling public.

There are numerous smaller hotels and any number of boarding-houses.

Atlanta is the stop-over point for the Florida winter travel, both going and coming, and is rapidly becoming a summer resort by reason of its elevation, bracing atmosphere, and cool climate.

The Radius of Distribution.

Atlanta's advantages as a distributing point are shown by the central location with reference to Southeastern towns. There are seventy-nine towns of exceeding 4,000 population in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi. The average distances of these towns by States from Atlanta, Savannah and Nashville are as follows:

ATLANTA SAVANNAH NASHVILLE Alabama 195 miles 419 miles 269 miles North Carolina 400 miles 352 miles 629 miles South Carolina 239 miles 193 miles 526 miles Georgia 147 miles 233 miles 386 miles Mississippi 423 miles 606 miles 440 miles --------- --------- --------- 1,404 miles 1,803 miles 2,250 miles

Average distance of towns in five States 280.8 miles 360.6 miles 450 miles

[Ill.u.s.tration: COURT HOUSE--FROM THE SOUTH.]

Street Railways.

Atlanta has a fine system of street railways, with one hundred and forty-two miles of track radiating from the heart of the city to the residence portion and thence to the suburbs. In some directions they reach out for eight miles, as in the case of College Park, Decatur and the Chattahoochee River.