Year Erected: 1985

Marker Text: This is one of the oldest buildings in downtown Atlanta. It was completed on April 22, 1869, and served as the main freight depot for the Georgia Railroad. Corput and Bass, architects, Thomas Alexander, contractors, B.H. Broomhead, carpenter, and Hayden and Healy, masons, were responsible for the construction at a cost of $35, 000.00.

The end of the building once held offices and was three stories high with a balcony on the second floor and a cupola on the hipped roof. Much of the building burned in January, 1935 and it was subsequently rebuilt in its present form. The Georgia Building Authority bought the building in 1981 and renovated it for public use.

The Georgia Railroad, chartered in 1833, was completed in September, 1845 at a cost of $3,369,856.42 from Augusta to a small village first named "Terminus" then "Marthasville". The Georgia Railroad connected with the Western and Atlantic Railroad that linked Marthasville and Chattanooga. The little village became an important rail center and J. Edgar Thompson, Chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad, shortly thereafter suggested renaming Marthasville "Atlanta."