Howell Station Historic District

Howell Station is a blue-collar neighborhood northwest of downtown Atlanta, platted in a grid in the early 1890s by developers S.D. Niles and W.B. Goldsmith. It grew around the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which reached the area in 1843, and the light industry along Marietta Street. Early residents worked for railroad companies, followed by workers in nearby industry. The district contains 210 contributing buildings, mostly modest houses such as shotgun, Georgian cottage, bungalow, gabled-ell and Hall-Parlor types, in Craftsman and Folk Victorian styles. Four historic churches, a few brick commercial buildings on West Marietta Street, and Knight Park with its community building serve as community landmarks. Black and white residents lived in separate sections, and the surviving Black section on Herndon Street allows the two groups' housing to be compared. Tree-lined streets, granite retaining walls and informal front yards set the neighborhood apart from the surrounding industry. It was recognized for architecture, planning, landscape and ethnic heritage, with a period of significance of 1890 to 1947.