View source for Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Avenue: A History

Atlanta’s Ponce de Leon Avenue: A History, by Sharon Foster Jones is less a critical evaluation of Atlanta’s history and more a “who’s who” and a “what’s what” of one of the most famous and ever-evolving roads of the city. Ponce de Leon Avenue reads like a conversation with your local historian—affectionate toward and deeply familiar with the topic. With a lighthearted tone, this book reads quickly, but do not mistake its ease of style with a lack of in-depth research. This account is a trove of knowledge; a history of landscape, transportation, architecture, and economy that could be told of many places around the United States as they developed through the 19th and 20th centuries. While there are noticeable gaps in this book—particularly a lack of racial diversity—the work is one of very few to give such a detailed account of a notable location in Atlanta.

Jones pulls from a variety of sources for this work, both primary and secondary. Among her sources are local radio programming, newspapers, government documents, directories, church records, and even building permits. She complements these local archives with broader resources such as Ancestry.com, websites, and architectural books and other secondary works. Ponce de Leon Avenue, while largely entertaining, has the promise of thorough research to back it up. Unfortunately, at least in the Kindle edition, there are no citations to sourced material within the text. A rather lengthy and diverse bibliography concludes the work, but the lack of specific source identification within the text takes away some of its academic potential or usefulness to scholars who may wish to follow up on Jones’ research.

The narrative style of Ponce de Leon Avenue is nonlinear and the book reads somewhat like memory recall. Drifting from topic to topic, Jones does not follow a chronological structure, but rather introduces new places and new names as they become relevant to the story. While this is a modern example of casual Southern storytelling, this lack of real framework (in addition to the lack of in-text citation), may be challenging to anyone hoping to refer to this work as a scholarly source in itself. There is little signaling for change of topic within the text and, in fact, the narrative often hops from place to place and from time to time. Also, the table of contents is very broadly structured and gives no real thematic cues as to what will be found in the five chapters that the book has been divided into. However, casual readers and researchers alike will likely be grateful to Jones for her painstaking research and attention to detail on a wide range of topics. This work could definitely serve as a springboard for anyone looking for specific themes related to the history of Midtown Atlanta.

The story of Ponce de Leon is intrinsically bound to the story of Atlanta, which is the tale of how a small town came to be one of the most industrialized cities in the South. People who have grown up in Atlanta—and have inevitably traveled Ponce de Leon countless times—may be surprised to learn about the changing landscape of that area, whether due to fire, commercial development, or socioeconomic changes in our society. Those not familiar with the region may find in this book a classic example of Southern storytelling, where the characters are a mix of local or national legend and the locations but one setting in the national historic theater.

Atlanta is the city notoriously plagued and shaped by fire. While most are familiar with General Sherman’s epic fire, it was not the only, nor the most redefining fire Atlanta was to experience. The Great Fire of 1917 affected a range of three hundred acres, affecting white and black residents, rich and poor. Whereas Sherman’s fire destroyed and maimed the landscape, the Great Fire destroyed but then redrew the landscape, physically and economically. Jones spends a good deal of time detailing the fire of 1917, providing a graphic narrative based on first-hand accounts and other historical documentation. This work shows how incredibly architecture and even city planning were affected by this ten-hour inferno.

Many local legends appear in Ponce de Leon Avenue, both human and structural. Influential names like Candler, Adair, and Hartsfield make an appearance in these pages. Mostly, however, readers learn a great deal about locally famous buildings along Ponce, both still standing and long gone. We learn the histories behind many prominent buildings such as Ivy Hall, the Sears, Roebuck building, the Fox Theatre, the Georgia Terrace, the Ford Factory Lofts, and Ponce de Leon Ballpark. Atlanta is a city known for rapid development, sometimes at the expense of our historical buildings. Jones gives vivid and thorough accounts of some of these structures, in addition to providing archival images, so that one can easily imagine these locations in their early days.

With all of its fine points, Ponce de Leon Avenue is lacking in one key area: diversity. The history of Ponce de Leon—which spans along many diverse neighborhoods that have changed over time—is a mostly Caucasian history as told by Jones. African Americans are inseparable from Atlanta history, and Ponce de Leon is a major corridor of Atlanta, so the absence of any substantive tales of the African Americans who have undoubtedly occupied this area is disappointing. The author does speak of blues musician Blind Willie McTell and the Black Crackers baseball team, and briefly mentions Clermont Lounge legend Blondie, but these are only small mentions. In fact, not only are African Americans barely present in this book, but segregation is brought up only a handful of times and with little elaboration. The author makes brief mention of the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, but only in passing as what appears to be an afterthought in explaining that the segregation of the park on Ponce was common for the time. While acknowledging that “Ponce became a dividing line between the white and African American communities around the 1950s,”[1]  Jones does little to explore African American roots, heritage, or contributions to the Ponce community. Considering the wealth of personal information provided on the prominent white settlers, business owners, home owners, and developers, the exclusion of African American history in this work is curious. Jones provides a painstakingly rich history of this area, but in reading this particular account, one learns practically nothing as to the lives of the African Americans that helped shape the Ponce de Leon corridor.

Jones’ passion for the subject matter is apparent and she has a gift for storytelling. This work is a fascinating tale of an Atlanta region that may appeal to a large public audience. However, the lack of racial diversity in an otherwise comprehensive narrative, in-text citations, or even notes stand in the way of this being a complete, scholarly contribution to historical studies. The research done on this book is admirable and draws from a wide range of sources. I would like to see a new edition of this work, which includes all of the lacking elements. I believe that then it would not only be an entertaining read, but could also make a strong contribution to Atlanta historical studies, in general.

[1] Foster Jones, Sharon (2012-05-08). Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Avenue: A History (Georgia) (The History Press) (Kindle Locations 376-377). The History Press. Kindle Edition.