It is easy to simply take Oakland’s majestic trees for granted. Yes, they give so much: cooling shade, bird perches, oxygen cleaned of pollutants, and suffuse the grounds with a light perfume when in bloom. Many of the largest trees,…
James Edward Tate, Jr. was born in Georgia on October 6, 1893, the first-born child of James Edward Tate Sr. and Nancy Tate. The Tate family was a prominent African American family in Atlanta. Tate’s grandfather, James Tate, opened the…
What event in the early twentieth century killed more people than World War I? If you guessed the Spanish flu, you are correct. The Spanish flu is considered one of the deadliest epidemics in human history. It wiped out three…
Little is known of Oakland’s horticultural landscape in its first two decades. Few Atlanta newspaper issues survive from the 1850s. Except for bemoaning the town’s destruction during the Battle of Atlanta, not many people wrote about the “City Grave Yard”…
Oakland Cemetery is the story of Atlanta. Whether rich or poor, black or white, famous or infamous, every resident’s story here at Oakland Cemetery shines a light on the beautiful mosaic that is Atlanta’s rich history. This year, at Historic…
On the eve of the Civil War, Atlanta was home to near 10,000 people. The city boasted substantial commercial and manufacturing districts, as well as four major railroads. Even though Atlanta was not Georgia’s largest city (that honor belonged to…
The early 1870s were the dawn of a new golden era for the “City Grave Yard.” A new cemetery design and a new ethos of landscape gardening brought by the newly-elected Sexton, John Connally, fostered a sense of pride among…
In 1866 the City of Atlanta began its long-needed expansion of the City Grave Yard. While the design we know today was laid out in early 1867, the roots of its design reach back to the preceding decade. During the…
In Oakland’s early halcyon days of the 1870s and 1880s, neatly trimmed hedges of geometric perfection were de rigueur. Soon after Oakland expanded in the late 1860s, families began planting hedges and evergreens. By the mid-1880s, elaborate lot designs of exacting…
On April 6, 1917, the United States officially entered World War I. The declaration of war mobilized millions of men eligible for military service, but the war also had a significant impact on American women. Women enlisted in the military…