City fathers purchased six acres in 1850 to be a public burial ground for a young but fast-growing town that already had a population of more than 2,500. It was designed as a rural garden cemetery, a 19th Century innovation conceived as an alternative to traditional graveyards which often were crowded and aesthetically unappealing.

The celebrated and humble rest together at Oakland. Tycoon and pauper, Christian and Jew, black and white, powerful and meek, soldier and civilian—all are here.

Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first African American mayor, and Ivan Allen, Jr. became the 26th and 27th mayors of the city to be buried at Oakland, joining six Georgia governors. Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With The Wind, is also buried here. So are golf great Robert T. (Bobby) Jones; Joel Hurt, one of the city’s leading developers and entrepreneurs; Atlanta historian Franklin Garrett, Bishop Wesley John Gaines, founder of Morris Brown College; Carrie Steele Logan, 19th Century founder of Atlanta’s first orphanage for black children which continues today as the Carrie Steel Pitts Home, and others who played a role in Atlanta’s evolution.