Decatur Square

This guide to Decatur Square in Atlanta opens on the courthouse square where, in the 1840s, the coming Western and Atlantic Railroad forced a choice on a sleepy DeKalb County seat. Decatur's townsfolk weighed the smoke, noise and disruption of a locomotive line against the quiet town they already had, and the surveyors were sent looking elsewhere. You'll hear about the pine woods and red clay seven miles west, where they settled instead. Stand at the courthouse and listen for what still lingers here of the town that said no.