Corruption and Development of Atlanta Streetcar Lines in the Nineteenth Century: A Historical GIS Perspective

Abstract

This chapter uses historical geographic information system (HGIS) to trace the formative years of public transportation in Atlanta. Routes chosen for the early streetcar lines were examined to ascertain their effects on the mobility networks of city residents and residential patterns. This study finds evidence that Atlanta city leaders engaged in corrupt bargains to benefit themselves with little regard for the lasting effects on the city’s transportation network and spatial development. Streetcar networks in postbellum Atlanta created demographic patterns that persist today. This chapter illustrates that HGIS can enable historians to distill new value from sources underutilized in urban history. Historians have used city directories and fire insurance maps as general reference material, but HGIS can operationalize such sources into an extensive archive of historical urban processes. This type of geospatial agency provides historians with new methods of investigation that can lead to new perspectives and understanding of the urban past.