Stuff You Missed in History Class · iHeartPodcasts

Richard Peters and Early Atlanta History

March 23, 2026·38 min·3 clips

Two railroad engineers changed a city's name to Atlanta just because Marthasville was too long to write.

1. Stuff You Missed in History Class examines Richard Peters, a civil engineer born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1810 who became a central architect of early Atlanta. 2. Hosts Holly Frey and Tracy B. Wilson draw primarily on Peters' recorded oral memoir, described as a dictated account taken by a relative late in his life. 3. The episode argues that Peters occupies a morally complex position: instrumental to Atlanta's identity while also benefiting from enslavement and running Confederate blockades for personal profit. 4. Peters' grandfather, Judge Richard Peters, was appointed to the U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania by George Washington in 1792 and largely supported the family financially after Peters' father, Ralph, repeatedly failed in business. 5. Peters enrolled at the Franklin Institute after architect William Strickland told him to spend a year improving his handwriting, drawing, and mathematics before reapplying for work. 6. Peters began his railroad career as a rodman on the Camden and Amboy Railway survey in 1830-31, noting the line was built for horsepower with 600-foot curves to save $100 at a time. 7. He was hired in 1835 as chief engineer on the Georgia Railroad planned to run from Augusta to Athens, traveling during one of the coldest winters on record, which destroyed most of Florida's citrus groves. 8. By 1837 Peters was promoted to superintendent of the Georgia Railroad, after which he began building personal wealth through land purchases, a sawmill, prize-winning livestock breeding, and a horticultural program selling new plant varieties. 9. Peters invented a rudimentary train headlight using pine knots burning in a sand tray atop the smokestack, and reported fewer nighttime accidents than daytime ones on the Georgia Line — the first railroad to run at night. 10. In 1846, Peters and chief engineer J. Edgar Thompson agreed to rename the railroad terminus city 'Marthasville' to 'Atlanta' — coined as the feminine form of 'Atlantic' — and Peters distributed thousands of circulars to establish the new name nationally. 11. Peters married Mary Jane Thompson, daughter of his Atlanta boarding host Dr. Joseph Thompson, on February 18, 1848; they had seven children who survived to adulthood. 12. He opened Atlanta's first steam-powered factory, a flour mill, in 1856, lost $20,000 to competition, then recouped those losses and more by selling the mill's engines to the Confederate government for gold and selling the mill lot to the Georgia Railroad for $20,000. 13. Four hundred acres of Peachtree Street land Peters bought for $5 an acre to fuel the mill later sold at $1,000-$2,000 per acre; that land now encompasses the Fox Theater and Georgia Tech. 14. In his memoir, Peters states he actively opposed secession in 1860-61 specifically because he believed the South was ignorant of Northern power and that 'the whole civilized world opposed slavery,' predicting Confederate failure from the start. 15. Peters noted that his friend Judge John P. King of Augusta wrote daily articles against secession and that 'a large majority of the thoughtful people of Georgia' agreed, but 'the hotheads of the South carried their point.' 16. During the war, Peters co-founded two blockade-running shipping companies supplying cotton and coffee through Union naval lines, estimating the venture earned 'something like $3 million' despite losing several ships. 17. Peters' family evacuated Atlanta on the last train to Augusta as Sherman approached; Peters himself stayed to monitor the railroads before making what he described as a 'narrow escape' as the city fell at the end of 1864. 18. The episode is structured as a biography delivered conversationally, with the hosts reading long verbatim passages from Peters' memoir and interjecting commentary, giving it a relaxed two-person reading-club energy. 19. This episode is well-suited for listeners interested in Gilded Age American business history, Atlanta local history, or the pragmatic economics of the Civil War era. 20. Listeners seeking social history focused on enslaved people's experiences, or episodes that center the moral dimensions of slavery rather than the perspective of a white businessman, will find this episode limited.

As heard by us

A grounded look at Richard Peters, railroads, stagecoaches, and the practical business choices behind early Atlanta history.

Richard Peters and early Atlanta history come across as a story of railroads, timber, land, and practical problem-solving. The most useful thread is Peters moving from railroad work into investment and business ownership while taking care, at least as described here, to keep his…

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Why you'd press play

You want Georgia history about Peter's rise, a pine-knot train light, and the business of building routes.

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