City’s Zero Mile Post now at History Center

Marble block moved because Central Avenue bridge is being rebuilt.

The marble marker installed in the 1850s had to be moved for Central Avenue Bridge work.

before Atlanta stuck and the city developed into a southeastern rail hub.

In the months leading up to GBA’s decision to relocate the marker from downtown, some local preservationist expressed concerns about moving such an important piece of Atlanta’s history to any location other than the place it was designed to mark.

“The Atlanta Preservation Center has made its posi- tion known and has advo- cated for the preservation of the Zero Mile Post for several years,” said David Mitchell, Director of Oper- ations. The Atlanta Preser- vation Center, along with other preservationists inter- viewed earlier this year by The Atlanta Journal-Consti- tution, said they hoped the marker would be kept in the location where it had been for more than 150 years. In May, the Atlanta City Coun- cil passed a resolution stat- ing the Zero Mile Post should remain in its historic site and be made accessible to the public.

But Stancil said the decision to move the marker is a win for everyone.

“We just didn’t feel like if we tore the building down that was protecting it. There is no way that marker would have lasted any time. We felt like this was the best way to protect it and the best way for people to see it,” Stancil said.

The building authority had a surveyor mark the exact GPS coordinates of the marker. “Even if someone goes out and levels the place with a bulldozer, we will still know where the marker is,” Stancil said.

A replica post that has long been on display at the Atlanta History Center will be placed at the site down- town where Zero Mile Post once stood along with an interpretive marker from Georgia Historical Society.

Zero Mile Post has not regularly been on view to the public since 1994 when a tourist rail line that used the building as a passenger depot went out of business. Anyone who wanted to enter the building and access the post had to request permission.

It took one day for the History Center to remove the marker from the concrete base where only 42-inches of it had been exposed above ground.

The Atlanta History Center initially considered displaying the marker in the same manner as it had been posi- tioned in its original location, but decided it would be better displayed in its full scale. As part of the exhibition, Zero Mile Post will appear with the restored Texas locomotive, one of two remaining Western & Atlantic locomotives that would have arrived and departed from the very same mile post.

Zero Mile Post and the locomotive will be visible, day and night, through the glass windows of the new Rollins Gallery facing West Paces Ferry Road.

CONTRIBUTED BY THE ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER Zero Mile Post, a significant artifact in Atlanta’s history, has been relocated from downtown to the Atlanta History Center. The post was originally installed in the 1850s to mark the southern terminus of the Western & Atlantic Railroad.

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY The Zero Mile Post Marker is seen in 1958. Viewing of the artifact has been by request only since 1994 when the rail line that used its building as a depot closed.

PETE CORSON / PCORSON@AJC.COM This building beneath the Central Avenue viaduct was built around the ZeroMile Post landmark in downtown Atlanta in the late 1980s. The building will be demolished for bridge reconstruction.