Sweet Auburn Historic District

Sweet Auburn is a four-block stretch of Auburn Avenue in Atlanta that once anchored the city's black business and social life. Buildings from the 1890s to the 1940s remain on the west side of the I-85/75 connector, which cut the original mile-long avenue apart. Key landmarks include the Atlanta Life Insurance Company with its Beaux-Arts facade, the Romanesque Revival Big Bethel AME Church begun in 1891, the Georgian Revival Butler Street YMCA, the Odd Fellows Building and Auditorium of 1912-1913, the Herndon Building, and the Municipal Market. The district matters because segregation after the Civil War concentrated black shops, professionals and institutions here, and the avenue earned the name given by John Wesley Dobbs and a reputation as the richest Negro street in the world. By 1930 only fourteen black businesses remained in central Atlanta, while Auburn Avenue flourished. The remaining buildings show that period of enterprise and community leadership.