Buckhead

Buckhead is the uptown commercial and residential district of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, comprising approximately the northernmost fifth of the city. Buckhead is the third-largest business district within the Atlanta city limits, behind Downtown and Midtown, and a major commercial and financial center of the Southern U.S.

Buckhead is anchored by a core of high-rise office buildings, hotels, shopping centers, restaurants and condominiums centered around the intersection of Peachtree Road and Piedmont Road near Georgia State Route 400, the Buckhead MARTA station, and Lenox Square.

In 1838, Henry Irby purchased 202-1/2 acres surrounding the present intersection of Peachtree, Roswell, and West Paces Ferry roads from Daniel Johnson for $650. Irby subsequently established a general store and tavern at the northwest corner of the intersection. The name "Buckhead" comes from a story that Irby killed a large buck deer and placed the head in a prominent location. Prior to this, the settlement was called Irbyville. By the late 1800s, Buckhead had become a rural vacation spot for wealthy Atlantans. In the 1890s, Buckhead was rechristened Atlanta Heights but by the 1920s it was again "Buckhead".

Buckhead remained dominated by country estates until after World War I, when many of Atlanta's wealthy began building mansions among the area's rolling hills. Simultaneously, a number of Black enclaves began popping up in Buckhead, following events like the 1906 Atlanta race riot and the Great Atlanta fire of 1917, which drove black residents from the city center. Predominantly black neighborhoods within Buckhead included Johnsontown, Piney Grove, Savagetown, and Macedonia Park.

Despite the stock market crash of 1929, lavish mansions were still constructed in Buckhead throughout the Great Depression. In 1930, Henry Aaron Alexander built one of the largest homes on Peachtree Road, a 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m²) house with 33 rooms and 13 bathrooms. During the mid-1940s, Fulton County decided to acquire the land comprising Macedonia Park to build what is now Frankie Allen Park. This process, which entailed both eminent domain and "outright coercion" displaced over 400 families.

During the mid-1940s, Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield sought to annex Buckhead, and a number of other predominantly White suburbs of Atlanta. Fearing that the city's "Negro population is growing by leaps and bounds", and was "taking more white territory inside Atlanta", Hartsfield sought to annex these communities to counteract the threat of increasing political power for the city's Black residents. The annexation of Buckhead was put to a vote in 1947, but it was rejected by Buckhead voters. Atlanta annexed Buckhead and a number of other nearby communities in 1952, following legislation which expanded Atlanta's city boundaries.

In 1956, an estate known as Joyeuse was chosen as the site for a major shopping center to be known as Lenox Square.^{[citation needed]} The mall was designed by Joe Amisano, an architect who designed many of Atlanta's modernist buildings.^{[citation needed]} When Lenox Square opened in 1959, it was one of the first malls in the country, and the largest shopping center in the Southeastern U.S. Office development soon followed with the construction of Tower Place in 1974.^{[citation needed]}

To reverse a downturn in Buckhead Village during the 1980s, minimum parking spot requirements for bars were lifted, which quickly led to it becoming the most dense concentration of bars and clubs in the Atlanta area.^{[better source needed]} Many bars and clubs catered mostly to the black community in the Atlanta area, including Otto's, Cobalt, 112, BAR, World Bar, Lulu's Bait Shack, Mako's, Tongue & Groove, Chaos, John Harvard's Brew House, Paradox, Frequency & Havana Club. The area became renowned as a party spot for Atlanta area rappers and singers, including Outkast, Jazze Pha, Jagged Edge, Usher and Jermaine Dupri, who mentioned the neighborhood's clubs on his song "Welcome to Atlanta".^{[citation needed]}