THRASHERVILLE AND LUMPKIN

The city of Atlanta has undergone a lot of name changes. It was originally called Terminus because it was the site of the end (or terminus) of the Western and Atlantic railroad line. For a brief period in the 1930s, it was known as Thrasherville, after pioneer and general store owner John Thrasher, although that was never the official name. In 1842, when it was clear that the city had become far more than a train station, some residents called for it to be named Lumpkin, after Wilson Lumpkin, the governor of Georgia at the time. Lumpkin declined, asking that they name it after his daughter Martha Atalanta instead, so they called it Marthasville. Just over two years later, when the Georgia railroad was completed, the main engineer asked that it be renamed Atlanta-Pacifica, and Lumpkin compromised to Atlanta, since his daughter's middle name was Atalanta anyway.