It would be difficult to find a neighborhood more closely linked to the city's, state's, region's, and nation's historical development than the West End district of Atlanta. In general terms, West End exemplifies both the planned and unplanned aspects of urbanization and suburbanization in the United States. From a frontier outpost in the 1830s, the district evolved into an independent political entity closely linked by rail and roads to its neighbor Atlanta. In 1894, it was annexed by Atlanta as a distinct ward following two decades of planned suburbanization. In this century, West End has endured many changes in its metamorphosis to an "intown" neighborhood while retaining its own distinctive character and vitality. This has been accomplished both by adaptation and participation in change and by its citizens' recognition of the district's special history. Furthermore, West End is connected directly and indirectly with leaders of varying local, state, regional, and national significance in the Civil War, politics, literature, architecture and the Civil Rights Movement.

The backbone or framework for almost all urban development has been transportation and West End is no exception. Before there was a West End or an Atlanta, the area was a crossroads. Newnan Road connected the town of that name to Decatur and Lawrenceville. Crossing this road was the Sandtown Road going west to an Indian town of that name. Near this junction around 1830, Charner Humphries established an inn/tavern which came to be known as Whitehall due to the then unusual fact that it had a coat of white paint when most other buildings were of washed or natural wood. The route between Humphries's tavern and the soon to be established town of Terminus/Marthasville/Atlanta became Whitehall Road. In the other direction from Whitehall Tavern, present day Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard (formerly Gordon Road) passed the Five Notch Trading Post of another early entrepreneur and eventually led to ferry crossings over the Chattahoochee River, thus acquiring the pre-Civil War name of Green and Howell's Ferry Road. Greens Ferry (Westview) still runs north of West End, and Humphries Street is northeast of the Spelman College Campus

Humphries catered to almost all the needs of his rural, backwoods community. His tavern/inn not only provided a place to eat and drink, it was also post office, stagecoach stop, and general meeting place. Other nineteenth century southern passions for horses and gambling were satisfied by a racetrack slightly north of Whitehall. Following Humphries' death in 1855, the racetrack was sold and the land was used for a militia garrison, site for a Confederate cartridge factory, McPherson Barracks for Federal troops after the Civil War, and then as part of the campus of Spelman College. The latter two uses tended to separate the former racetrack area from the predominantly white West End, but the connection was never severed entirely. Although it would change dramatically over the next several decades, approximately half of the 1870 population of West End was black. The presence of northern soldiers nearby and later the establishment of a college for blacks created, at first, a safe haven for blacks and then a center for an emerging black middle class. The growth of what was to become Atlanta University and black neighborhoods north of West End was to have significant consequences after 1950.

West End promoters saw the potential for suburban development with their community so close to the reviving Atlanta of the late 1860s. Commuter passes were available on the Western and Macon Railroad for daily (and lunchtime) travel into the city. The primary promoter of West End was George Washington Adair, an Atlanta businessman since before the Civil War when he had engaged in slave trading, among other ventures. During most of the war, he published an Atlanta newspaper which was avidly pro-South. In the last year of fighting with Union forces approaching Atlanta, he became an aide to General Nathan Forrest with the rank of colonel; incidentally leaving his wife and children in Atlanta to brave General William Sherman's army alone. In 1865, he was elected to the Atlanta City Council, was a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention, and most importantly for West End formed the Adair Realty Company. G. W. Adair, his descendents, and the company he founded have influenced the growth of Atlanta to this day.

In the decades following the Civil War, Adair bought large plots of land in West End and eventually moved there. Along with fellow developers John Thrasher and Thomas Alexander, he subdivided and promoted the newly incorporated town as the ideal suburb of Atlanta. One part of their efforts to attract white middle to upper class residents was the naming of streets after prominent Southerners. Lee Street was named for the aforementioned Stephen Lee, resident of Tennessee and subsequent Commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans. The last mentioned post was previously held by General John B. Gordon, one of the major Georgia generals of the war. After 1865, Gordon amassed and lost fortunes serving as president of the Georgia Pacific Railroad, governor (1886-1890), and United States senator. The main thoroughfare in West End was named for him. Ashby Street was named for Brigadier General Turner Ashby, who was killed in 1862 but whose regiment of cavalry fought in the battles around Atlanta. General Alexander R. Lawton (Lawton Street) was from Savannah and attended West Point and Harvard Law School. Before the Civil War, he was a state senator and president of the Augusta and Savannah Railroad. Successful as a soldier, he eventually became Quartermaster General of the Confederacy. As a lawyer after 1865, he became president of the American Bar Association and ambassador to the Austro-Hungarian Empire under President Grover Cleveland.

It is not completely clear how other street names were selected, but many of them are very familiar. Hammond and Norcross are names of prominent Atlantans of the period and Grady Place refers to Henry Grady, New South spokesman and probably the best known Atlanta booster. Howell Place obviously refers to Evan Howell, Atlanta mayor and owner of The Atlanta Constitution, and Uncle Remus Avenue (now Lawton Place) was obviously in honor of Joel Chandler Harris. Both Howell and Harris were prominent residents of West End. Porter Street may well have been named for Confederate veteran and Atlanta resident James H. Porter who died in 1897. He was extremely wealthy as president of Merchants Bank and politically prominent as evidenced by his wife's hosting of a grand reception for Mrs. Grover Cleveland on her visit with the President in 1887. Oglethorpe Avenue could have been named for the founder of Georgia or for the Oglethorpe Light Infantry, one of the first companies of Georgia troops to fight in the Civil War. Hopkins and Peeples streets could have been named for John Hopkins and Cincinnatus Peeples, two Reconstruction era judges in Atlanta. Peeples was appointed Atlanta Circuit Judge in 1877 but had previously been a supporter of Ben Hill and a nominee for United States senator in 1866. Hopkins, who lived from 1828 to 1912, was Superior Court Judge for Fulton, Dekalb and Clayton Counties (1872-1878) and is credited with "cleaning up" a crime ridden Atlanta. In 1895, he chaired the committee to revise the Georgia Penal Code, performing the same task again in 1910. He also served as president of the Atlanta Bar Association (1891) and chaired a Committee of 100 (bi-racial) for nominating candidates for city elections. He spoke forcefully against lynching and for a woman's right to be a lawyer. Writing in Leslie's Weekly, Hopkins gave his solution for lynching - " . . . if prosecution and conviction of lynchers does not occur within a limited time, make the county liable to a fine of $10,000 payable into the common-school fund." In a newspaper article (n.d.), he called on the Georgia Bar Association to admit women as lawyers:

“The delightful poetic sentiment about 'lovely woman' and her protection in the home is all very nice as a sentiment. But there are multitudes of women, who have no home except that which they themselves make and maintain . . . . If a woman can gain an honorable independence by practicing law, I say it is a shame to shut her out of it.”

G.W. Adair, however, did more for West End and his own financial well-being than buy land for development and name streets. In 1870, he joined with Richard Peters to form the Atlanta Street Railway and thus provide trolley access to their holdings outside Atlanta city limits. The West End line followed Whitehall to Lee Street and out Gordon Street, eventually going all the way to West View Cemetery (incorporated in 1884). The intersection of Lee and Gordon was subdivided for commercial sale, setting the pattern for most later development. All development came to a virtual standstill, however, in the 1870s due to national economic depressions and Adair even had to declare bankruptcy in 1877.

This was a temporary setback for both Adair and West End. Prosperity returned to the nation in the 1880s and Adair recouped his fortune and West End became more and more fashionable. A competing trolley line, the West End and Atlanta Street Railway, branched out from downtown and along Porter St. (Lucile Ave.). Many prominent individuals began to move to the area after 1800 including the already mentioned Evan Howell, whose ten acre estate became Howell Park after his death. Other important Georgians moving to West End were former governor James Smith (1872-77), John Conley (son of Governor Benjamin Conley), Atlanta mayor Dennis Hammond, Thomas Stokes (founding partner of Davison's Department Store), L. Z. Rosser (president of the Atlanta Board of Education), J. P. Allen (clothing store owner), T. D. Longino (medical doctor and alderman), J. N. McEachern (insurance executive), and authors such as Frank L. Stanton, Madge Bigham (Sunny Elephant) and Joel Chandler Harris.

Harris lived on Gordon St. at the "Wren's Nest" until his death in 1908 and was nationally recognized for his Uncle Remus stories. Both during his life and up to the present, Harris has perhaps been West End's most famous resident. He attracted such figures as President Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie to Atlanta, the former returning after Harris' death to lecture for the Uncle Remus Memorial Association. The "Wren's Nest" has remained a memorial to Harris and his activities, including the hiding of blacks in his basement during the Atlanta race riots of 1906, and the organizational meeting for the future St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church. The wedding reception for Ralph David Abernathy's younger daughter was also held at the Wren's Nest. In 1978, the home was designated a National Historic Landmark and in 1989, it was designated a Landmark by the City of Atlanta.

Joel Chandler Harris commuted each work day to Atlanta via the trolley and undoubtedly typifies the activities of other prominent West End residents when the municipality was both growing in population and at the same time being engulfed by its larger neighbor. Infrastructure (paved streets, sewer lines, schools) and services (police and fire protection) were increasingly needed. At the same time, West End lacked the commercial and manufacturing bases necessary to provide adequate tax income. This became even more of a problem after the massive economic depression of 1893. In addition, the destruction of three homes by fire about this same time demonstrated the dire need for a fire department. A fact brought very close to home when fire insurance rates for the largely residential West End went up dramatically as a result. As a consequence of these needs and events, the citizens of West End voted for annexation to Atlanta in 1894 with guarantees regarding local liquor prohibition (established in West End in 1890) and a certain degree of autonomy as the Seventh Ward.

From 1894 to 1930, West End grew rapidly in population and prosperity. An examination of building permits for Peeples, Gordon, Lee and Lawton Streets shows a large number of single family residences being built and increasing commercial buildings and churches going up along Gordon and at the long established business district at Gordon and Lee. The private homes were generally modest in size and price, with few listing any of the major residential architects active at the time. The two exceptions for the streets listed above were a two story frame house at 127 (subsequently 1017) Gordon Street designed in 1900 by the major architect Gottfried Norrman, and an 1898 residence at 155 (subsequently 567) Peeples Street by the major Atlanta firm of Bruce and Morgan. The new residents increased the population from 7,132 in 1910 to 22,882 by 1930, with a general decline in the number of black residents to only fifteen percent in the latter year. This racial segregation is evident despite a large black population just north of West End around Atlanta University and was due largely to restrictive zoning ordinances passed in the 1920s and the use of violence against blacks who began to move into the North Ashby Street area. Segregation was to remain the rule until the late 1960s and was even somewhat formalized in an agreement between white residents and the black Empire Real Estate Board (representing black realtors and developers) in 1952. Their agreement established guarantees that West End would remain white, stating, "While this Board is not setting up any property line or zoning area for Negro expansion, in the spirit of good will and public relations, in cooperation with the people of West End, this agreement is being made for the time being . . . ."

National and local prosperity and the mobility created by the automobile in the 1920s helped West End to grow. Approximately fifty businesses were now clustered at Gordon and Lee with branches of Sears, Firestone, Piggly-Wiggly, and Goodyear. Churches and schools increased to serve the growing population. The present St. Anthony's Church was built in 1923 (a rectory and school were later added) with A. Ten Eyck Brown as architect and stained glass windows imported from Germany. Brown is well known as the architect of the Municipal Market (1923) on Edgewood Avenue, the YMCA at 145 Luckie Street, Fulton County Courthouse (1911-14), the original Federal Reserve Building (1918-21), and the Federal Post Office Annex (1931-33).

Schools began to dot West End, the largest being the 1923 Joseph E. Brown High School at Peeples and Beecher. Originally a junior high school, Brown became a high school in 1947 and has remained so to this day. It was named for one of Georgia's and Atlanta's most powerful political and business leaders. Joseph Emerson Brown rose from poverty in north Georgia to attend Yale Law School. Returning to Georgia, he served as a superior court judge, state senator, and governor (1857-1865). Following the Civil War, he supported reconstruction and thus was appointed chief justice of the state's Supreme Court (1868-70). Combining mutually profitable careers in business and politics, Brown was president of the leasing company for Georgia's state owned railroad, the Western and Atlantic, and was a United States senator (1880-90). He invested heavily and successfully in Atlanta businesses and real estate, owning an entire block of the downtown business district. The Romanesque Revival style structure was constructed in 1924 as part of a city-wide school bond construction program. The architects for the school were the prominent Atlanta firm of Pringle and Smith. Founded in 1922, the firm designed many widely-recognized buildings in Atlanta and the southeast before its dissolution in 1934. Traditional and Beaux-Arts elements were characteristic of the firm's earlier commercial buildings, such as the Cox-Carlton Hotel of 1926 and the "Byzantine"style Rhodes-Haverty Building of 1929. However, in the W. E. Orr Doctors and William Oliver buildings of 1930, Pringle and Smith incorporated the bolder, modernistic elements of the Art Deco style. A 1929 addition was designed by another significant southeastern architect, G. Lloyd Preacher, who designed Atlanta's City Hall in 1930. In 1961, the school named for Joseph Brown became one of the first Atlanta schools to be integrated.

After 1930, West End was an aging but still vital Atlanta community. This vitality is most clearly evident in the West End Businessmen's Association (originally formed in 1927). In 1937, the Association pushed for extension of the National Housing Act title providing for home modernization loans, and in subsequent decades (1950s and 1960s) for economic accessibility and population stabilization, including segregation. With the group's support, Gordon Street was widened, Interstate 20 was built across West End's northern fringe, and the old business district (along with large amounts of residential housing) was demolished in favor of a mall development. Completed in 1973, the mall's accessibility was later augmented by part of the city's latest transportation system, a MARTA station, across the street. The West End Businessmen's Association obviously was successful in many areas, but it failed in stopping "white flight" and the movement of blacks into the community. By 1976, West End was eighty-six percent black.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of pride and interest in West End by its residents. The West Hunter Street Baptist Church was moved to Gordon Street. This church has been one of Atlanta's leading black churches for decades and since 1961 was led, until his death, by the Reverend Ralph David Abernathy. Jesse Jackson came to West End to speak at the opening of the new church. A close friend and confidante of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abernathy participated in most of the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s and succeeded King as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In honor of his nationally recognized contributions to the civil rights movement, Gordon Street was renamed Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard, in 1991. In addition, neighborhood residents formed the West End Neighborhood Development, Inc. (WEND), in 1974, with the goal of improving the socioeconomic position of their community and its residents. In order to increase awareness of the West End neighborhood, WEND has sponsored a tour of homes, a yearly festival in Howell Park, and a driving tour booklet highlighting neighborhood homes and cultural and religious centers.

The Hammonds House, a gallery and resource center for African-American art, is the architectural and artistic legacy of the late Dr. Otis Thrash Hammonds, a prominent Atlanta physician. The Queen Anne type house with Eastlake detailing was once the home of the author Madge Bigham. Dr. Hammonds renovated the structure and filled it with his notable collection of African-American art and 19th century antiques. Upon his death in 1985, the house and collection were purchased by Fulton County and subsequently opened to the public. In a recent report sponsored by WEND, the author states, "As West End was once described as one of Atlanta's most socially diverse and culturally rich communities, it is again returning to the tradition of its past, as it relates to the regenerating of community value and revitalization."