The region where Atlanta and its suburbs were built was originally Creek peopleCreek and Cherokee Native Americans in the United StatesNative American territory. The Creek land in the eastern part of the metro area (including Decatur) was opened to white settlement in 1823. In 1835, leaders of the Cherokee nation ceded their land to the government in exchange for land out west under the Treaty of New Echota, an act that eventually led to the Trail of Tears. In 1836 the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United StatesMidwest, with the area around Atlanta -- then called "Terminus" -- serving as the terminal. The terminus was originally planned for Decatur, GeorgiaDecatur, but its citizens did not want it. Besides Decatur, several other suburbs of Atlanta predate the city by several years, including Marietta, GeorgiaMarietta and Lawrenceville, GeorgiaLawrenceville. Terminus grew as a railroad town; later it was renamed Marthasville, GeorgiaMarthasville after then-Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha. Marthasville was renamed Atlanta in 1845 (a feminized version of "Atlantic" suggested by J. Edgar Thomson) and was incorporated as such in 1847. During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. (See also: Atlanta in the Civil War.) In 1864, the city became the target of a Atlanta campaignmajor Union invasion (the subject of the 1939 film Gone with the Wind (film)Gone with the Wind). The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate States of AmericaConfederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William Tecumseh ShermanWilliam T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Union assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his punitive march south. After a plea by Father Thomas O'Reilly of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Sherman did not burn the city's churches or hospitals. The remaining war resources were then destroyed in the aftermath, and in Sherman's March to the Sea. The fall of Atlanta was a critical point in the Civil War, its much publicized fall giving confidence to the Northerners, and (along with the Battle of Mobile Bay) leading to the re-election of Abraham Lincoln and the eventual surrender of the Confederacy. The city emerged from the ashes – hence the city's symbol, the Phoenix (mythology)phoenix – and was gradually rebuilt. It soon became the industrial and commercial center of the South. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks (later renamed Fort McPherson) in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era (United States)Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the federal government set up a Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned LandsFreedmen's Bureau, which helped establish what is now Clark Atlanta University, one of several historically black colleges in Atlanta. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital. Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", by which he meant a diversification of the economy away from agriculture, and a shift from the "Old South" attitudes of slavery and rebellion. As part of the effort to modernize the South, Grady and many others also supported the creation of the Georgia School of Technology (now the Georgia Institute of Technology), which was founded on the city's northern outskirts in 1885. In 1880, Sister Cecilia Carroll, RSM, and three companions traveled from Savannah, Georgia to Atlanta to minister to the sick. With just 50 cents in their collective purse, the sisters opened the Atlanta Hospital, the first medical facility in the city after the Civil War. This later became known as Saint Joseph's Hospital. As Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta%2C_Georgia

One interesting aspect, is Shermans March to the Sea. He burned Atlanta to the ground :D ...But we rebuilt it ;_;