1874 Streetcar to Ponce de Leon Springs

The first picture show the streetcar from downtown to Ponce de Leon Springs - a popular park on a stream at the site of the future Sears Roebuck building and current police department.

The second picture shows the streetcar crossing the bridge at Penn Ave, two blocks east of Piedmont Ave. Based on the terrain, it looks as if this may be along the future North Ave., one block from the current Ponce de Leon Ave.

City Hall East (formerly Sears Roebuck) occupies a city block which was once the site of Ponce de Leon Springs, Atlanta’s first suburban resort. Rail workers building the adjacent Air Line Railroad, later the Southern Railway belt line, discovered two springs in 1868. After the workers claimed that the spring water cured their illnesses, people gathered there frequently to drink from a tin cup chained to a wall. Beeches, oaks, hickories, wild azaleas, and abundant violets beautified the area.

Henry L. Wilson named the springs in honor of Ponce de Leon in 1870. When a horsecar trolley began making daily trips to the area from downtown, the valley surrounding the springs became an amusement park. Artificial Ponce de Leon Lake across the street and nearby Pairs Pond offered swimming. With the addition of a dance hall, picnic ground, stock company theater, and rides for kids, Ponce de Leon Springs became the city’s favorite private park between 1885-1920.

The resort was eventually destroyed when a baseball stadium called Ponce de Leon Park, the home of the Atlanta Crackers, replaced the lake in 1909 and when Sears replaced the springs in 1926. A Sears water fountain with a sign saying the water was piped from the springs was once a reminder of the past, but now that has disappeared too. Memories of the old park, though, are embedded in street names: Ponce de Leon Avenue—the road that led to Ponce de Leon Springs—and, just northwest of Sears, Lakeview Avenue—the road that overlooked Ponce de Leon Lake.