The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes thousands of stories every year that deal with subjects small and large, that create buzz in the places where they happen, but also throughout the metro area.
Here are five of the biggest, most important and most-read local news stories for 2018 in Cobb, DeKalb, north Fulton and Gwinnett counties along with Intown Atlanta. Sure, there are other stories, so feel free to comment with your own five faves.
READ | Some of our favorite overlooked metro Atlanta dishes of 2018
Cobb
Credit: Bob Andres
Credit: Bob Andres
Some people aren’t familiar with the Concord Road Covered Bridge. Others are a bit too familiar.
The 145-year-old covered bridge has almost been destroyed an average of once a month this year. Since December 2017 when taxpayers spent $800,000 rehabbing it, the metal bars protecting the bridge have been hit 13 times.
Here’s to another year of almost calamities.
Read about four other big moments in Cobb this year here.
DeKalb
What was almost an injection of life into the North DeKalb Mall area ended up not being compatible.
The Sterling Organization, which owns the mall announced in April plans to demolish the mall and build a new Costco, more retail and restaurants and 50 multi-family housing units and 50 townhomes.
But after talks with DeKalb County officials, plans fell apart in December.
The county and the company plan to meet in January.
See what else did and didn't happen in DeKalb this year.
Intown Atlanta
Georgia’s roadside boiled peanuts will not be a roadtrip reality for the Amazonians at the tech giant’s new second headquarters.
They picked someone else, or, more accurately, two someones else.
Amazon’s search for HQ2 had many economic development folks and politicians drooling at a $5 billion campus with as many as 50,000 jobs.
And Atlanta was a serious contender.
The AJC sent a couple reporters this spring to the company's home in Seattle to see if they had any advice for us. In short: get ready to grow. The reporters also found that transit was likely to be a part of negotiations.
They were right. In secrecy, the state dangled some mighty big carrots involving taxpayer money. The full scale wasn't known until after the company in November announced its picks of New York's Long Island City in Queens and the other in Arlington, Virginia.
Reporting showed that the state and others were willing to give:
• A state-funded academy to train Amazon’s employees
• A swank lounge with free parking at the world’s busiest airport
• An Amazon-dedicated car on MARTA
• More than $2 billion worth of publicly-funded incentives
Read about one of Atlanta’s big wins in 2018 here.
North Fulton
The high school football team at Milton, a rural horse town, beat one of the best teams in the nation. They were the 21-point underdogs compared to undefeated Colquitt High school in mid-December.
People packed into the Olde Blind Dog, a pub less than a mile from the school that is a go-to for parents. Between 60 and 70 kids crowded into a family’s basement and sang “We Are the Champions” late into the night.
Here's what other excitement North Fulton experienced in 2018.
Gwinnett
A lot of attention was on Buford — a city of about 15,000 people — this year.
The superintendent of the city schools system, Geye Hamby, resigned in August, a week after the AJC published audio recordings that allegedly had Hamby using racial slurs while saying he wanted to kill black workers at a construction site.
Hamby’s yearly salary was $308,000 before his resignation.
The AJC published in mid-December a story showing how the fiercely independent city is run by one family and how that raised ethical concerns across multiple levels of government.
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