Enamel street sign, 1930s.
Atlanta’s famous street name is widely known due in part to Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone With the Wind, which introduced the city and its most famous street to popular culture. A century earlier, Peachtree Street was an important Native American trail connecting Fort Daniel in present-day Gwinnett County to the Creek settlement of Standing Peach Tree on the Chattahoochee River.
A 1782 letter from Colonel John Daniel refers to a rendezvous of Coweta Creek Indians “at Standing Peach Tree” planning to disrupt a band of Oconee Indians. As many Creeks sided with the British during the War of 1812, the state of Georgia constructed a fort at Standing Peachtree. The area was designated a U.S. Post Office in 1825.
Celestine Sibley, author of Peachtree Street U.S.A., 1963.
Contributing to the name recognition of Atlanta’s “Main Street,” developers and city planners have provided variations on the original, increasing wayfinding confusion for many: Peachtree Lane, Peachtree Avenue, Peachtree Circle, Peachtree Memorial Drive, New Peachtree Road, Peachtree Walk, Peachtree Valley Road, Peachtree Battle Avenue, Peachtree Dunwoody Road, and many other variations.
By some accounts as many as seventy streets use some form of Peachtree in their name in Metropolitan Atlanta.
