airport

June 12, 1930

Delta Begins Passenger Service to Atlanta

It grew from a crop-dusting company based in the Mississippi River delta and became one of Georgia’s most famous corporate residents. Delta Air Lines began life in 1924 as a crop duster, based first in Macon and then Monroe, Louisiana. Collett Woolman bought the company in 1928 and renamed it Delta Air Service, with passenger […]

March 30, 1942

Bell Bomber Plant

The Bell Bomber plant transformed Marietta—and helped the Allies win World War II. On this day in 1942, construction began on the Bell Aircraft Corporation plant that built more than 600 B-29s during the war. The Roosevelt administration wanted to build aircraft away from the coast, and Atlanta was a prime location. Cobb County boosters […]

March 1, 1890

William B. Hartsfield

When you help guide a city through a depression and then, later, guide it through the civil rights era…when you are responsible for Atlanta’s becoming the aviation capital that it is…then it’s fair to say you’ve had an impact. William Hartsfield was mayor of Atlanta longer than any other person. He was born in Atlanta […]

December 10, 1930

Eastern Airlines

Eastern Airlines flew into the sunset in 1991, but it helped make Atlanta the transportation and commercial capital of the South. The airline began life as Pitcairn Aviation in 1927, carrying airmail for the government along an eastern route that connected New York to Florida via Atlanta. The company became Eastern Air Transport in 1930, […]