City history
Founded as a railroad terminus named Marthasville, Atlanta transitioned from local mean time through Central Time before permanently adopting Eastern Time.
Chapter one
Indigenous name
"Standing Peach Tree"
Recorded in 1782, Pakanahuili was a Muscogee settlement located near the confluence of Peachtree Creek and the Chattahoochee River, providing the origin for the name of Atlanta's famous Peachtree Street.
Standing Peach Tree
A Muscogee trading village along the Chattahoochee River that established the regional name preserved in modern Peachtree Street.
End of the line
Coined by engineers marking the zero mile post where the state-owned Western & Atlantic Railroad terminated.
Town of Martha
Incorporated in 1843 in honor of Martha Lumpkin, daughter of former Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin.
Feminine form of Atlantic
Suggested by railroad engineer J. Edgar Thomson to honor the Western & Atlantic Railroad; officially incorporated as a city on December 29, 1847.
Chapter two
On November 18, 1883, Atlanta adopted Central Standard Time (UTC-6) during the national railroad time synchronization, replacing its local solar mean time of UTC-5:37:31.
Congress passed the Standard Time Act of 1918, establishing federal oversight of time zones under the Interstate Commerce Commission and placing Atlanta officially in the Central Time Zone.
Governor Eugene Talmadge signed state legislation moving Atlanta and Georgia from Central to Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5), unifying statewide commercial time after years of boundary disputes.
Under nationwide wartime requirements, year-round Daylight Saving Time was enacted, though conflicting state and railway time zone interpretations created temporary transit scheduling complexities.
The federal Uniform Time Act standardized the exact start and end dates for Daylight Saving Time across the nation, establishing synchronized clock changes for Atlanta.
Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Atlanta extended its Daylight Saving Time period, running from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.
Chapter three
Engineers marked the zero mile post of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, establishing the physical rail terminus around which the settlement of Terminus and modern Atlanta grew.
Atlanta officially replaced Milledgeville as the state capital of Georgia, reflecting its rapid post-Civil War economic recovery and growing importance as a regional transportation center.
Atlanta introduced its first electric streetcars, modernizing urban transit and driving rapid residential development along suburban lines such as Edgewood Avenue.
Underground Atlanta introduced the annual Peach Drop celebration on New Year's Eve, dropping an 800-pound peach sculpture at midnight to ring in the new year.
Atlanta hosted the 1996 Centennial Summer Olympic Games, requiring synchronized international broadcasting and real-time transit coordination across Eastern Daylight Time.