Additional information
by Tevi Henson Taliaferro (Author)
To learn about a community's storied past, the city cemetery is the place to visit.
As Atlanta's oldest permanent landmark, Oakland Cemetery holds the past, present, and future history of the Gateway to the South. Established in 1850 as a small municipal cemetery on the southeastern edge of town, Historic Oakland has evolved into 88 acres of art, history, architecture, gardens, and peaceful green space in the heart of downtown Atlanta. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 as a significant example of an historic Victorian-era cemetery, Oakland is the final resting place of more than 70,000 deceased. People of both statewide and national importance have been buried throughout the cemetery's grounds in the past 150 years, including author Margaret Mitchell, golfing legend Bobby Jones, Confederate generals and soldiers, Georgia governors, Atlanta mayors, and ordinary people known only to their families. Historic Oakland Cemetery explores the history of both the cemetery and the people who were laid to rest there. From the famous to the infamous, the legendary to the ordinary, every person buried in the cemetery has a story to tell. For all of its emphasis on the past, Oakland remains an active cemetery, a public park, and an educational resource in which to study lush landscapes and Georgia history.
Author Biography
Author Tevi Taliaferro serves as the preservation coordinator for the Historic Oakland Foundation, the non-profit friends' group that works to preserve, restore, and beautify the cemetery and to promote it as an important historic resource. In Historic Oakland Cemetery, she has combined an extensive collection of beautiful, vintage photographs with unforgettable stories about the cemetery. This volume is a unique tribute to the city of Atlanta and to some of its most memorable residents.
