33°45′53″N84°21′22″W / 33.764831°N 84.356125°W /33.764831; -84.356125
Copenhill,Copenhill Park, orCopen Hill, was aneighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was located largely where theCarter Center now sits, and now forms part of thePoncey-Highland neighborhood.
Copen Hill (as it was originally written) was the site of theAugustus Hurt house (often erroneously cited as "Howard House"),[1] which served asGeneral Sherman's temporary headquarters during theBattle of Atlanta.[2]
In 1888, the Copenhill Land Company was incorporated with Oscar Davis as president and Charles A. Davis as secretary and treasurer;Lodewick Johnson Hill was one of the three owners.[3] The company laid out the city's second "garden suburb" (after Inman Park). The centerpiece was Madeira Park, which, like Springvale Park in Inman Park, was created out of a natural ravine near the center of the development. Intersections of the curving streets were often defined by small circular or triangular parks similar to those found inAnsley Park today. Other open spaces were also included in the original design, most notably the small lake near the intersection of Layal (now Colquitt) Avenue and Highland Avenue, which was fed by a small branch that formed part of the headquarters ofClear Creek. The Copenhill developers cooperated with the Inman Park developers to insure both developments were finished to the greatest advantage of one another.[4]
In April 1890, Col.George W. Adair auctioned off the first lots of the new subdivision of "Copenhill Park", which thus became one of the firststreetcar suburbs of Atlanta.[5] The area was attractive, among other reasons, for its accessibility to theNine-Mile Circle streetcar line along Ponce de Leon Avenue, though streetcar service was later added on Highland Avenue. It lay:
In 1908 the area was annexed into the city of Atlanta.
In June 1929, the area between Barnett Street, Maderia Avenue, and Albion Avenue (near the modern-day Carter Center) was petitioned to be rezoned by the Pattillo Lumber Company.[6] In the 1960s the area was razed to make way for the interchange of theI-485 freeway with theStone Mountain andGeorgia 400 freeways, which, however,were never built in this area. After laying vacant for many years, the Carter Center was finally dedicated in 1986. However, it was only in 1992 that the land originally razed to make way for a freeway was turned instead into a parkway (Freedom Parkway) and park land (Freedom Park).
A memory of the area's former existence as a neighborhood is retained in the name of the café at the Carter Center: the Copenhill Café and Patio.[7]
