Cabbagetown District

Cabbagetown is a textile mill village close to downtown Atlanta, built around the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills. The company began in 1881 on the site of a former rolling mill, chosen for its rail access and water supply. Mill buildings of five-story brick in a provincial neo-Romanesque style went up in stages between 1895 and 1922. Because the area was sparsely settled, the owners built housing for workers. The oldest surviving houses stand on Reinhardt Street and date from 1886 to 1892. Later streets hold shotgun cottages, duplexes, bungalows and Victorian-influenced homes on small, narrow lots. The mill supplied lawns, security, medical, dental, library and nursery services until the Elsas family sold it in 1957. The district was listed for its role as the site of the first mill making standardized cotton bags and for being one of the South's longest-lived factory-supported villages. Founder Jacob Elsas is credited with seeing the sense in processing cotton locally.