Welcome to Atlanta. No, the other one.
ATLANTA, Texas —The train brought downtown traffic in Atlanta to a standstill. All four cars of it.
I had pulled into this small East Texas town expecting to find a few familiar sights.
Instead, I found a railroad crossing where a passing train could cause a citywide jam, a Main Street lined with brick storefronts chock full of maroon Atlanta gear and a downtown where finding a parking space was delightfully easy compared with my Atlanta hometown.
Welcome to the other Atlanta. Population: about 5,400.
When our local leaders talk about the “other Atlanta,” they usually mean the neighborhoods and communities that have been left behind by the city’s boom times.
But this is quite literally the other Atlanta. And it turns out the two Atlantas have more in common than their names.
I made the detour during a reporting trip to northeast Texas, drawn by a quick side trip to a quirky town named after my Georgia home.
This Atlanta sits about 25 miles southwest of the border town of Texarkana, surrounded by the pine forests of Cass County. And like its much larger namesake, it owes its existence to the railroad.
Georgia’s Atlanta began as a railroad terminus in the 1830s, eventually growing into the transportation hub of the Southeast.
Its Texas counterpart emerged in the early 1870s as the Texas and Pacific Railway cut through the region, opening new markets for timber, cotton and other agricultural goods.
The settlers who had moved west from Georgia dedicated their new community in honor of their former hometown. In other words, the Texas town is named after the Georgia city, which itself was named for a railroad.
And as Atlanta, Texas, Mayor Marshall James Brooks IV pointed out, the similarities don’t end there.
“We both pronounce it the same way — Alanna.”
The Rabbits
The connection runs particularly deep for Brooks, whose family traces its lineage to some of the community’s earliest settlers.
Brooks’ great-grandmother’s family came west from Georgia and settled a few miles from the present-day Atlanta.
These days, Brooks said, the mayor’s job is mostly ceremonial in a city with relatively few major problems. The flare-ups tend to be intensely local: missing street signs, an overgrown memorial, tiffs over upkeep of the town’s sports fields.
“We have our own little issues,” he said, “but more often than not the problems at hand are minuscule.”
That, of course, is part of what’s keeping him here.
“It’s definitely a change of pace. It’s a laid-back small town. Everything moves a little slower around here, and we want it to stay that way.”
The family resemblance between the two Atlantas is still visible downtown.
Locals want it known that while this Atlanta has no Perimeter, Downtown Connector or Spaghetti Junction, it still has traffic. U.S. Route 59 passes near downtown as it winds from Mexico to the Canadian border, carrying a steady stream of trucks through this corner of East Texas.
And then there are the trains. The historic railroad depot stands beside the tracks, a handsome red-brick building with ATLANTA spelled out above the entrance.
Even some nearby place names sound familiar to a Georgian. There’s a Douglassville, a Marietta and a Smyrna not far away, inspired by the Atlanta suburbs.
A few blocks away, Main Street has the sort of small-town vibe metro Atlanta developers spend big bucks trying to re-create: brick storefronts, mom-and-pop shops and windows filled with flyers for the Atlanta Rabbits football schedule.
Yes, the Rabbits. Our Atlanta has the Braves, Falcons, Hawks, Dream and United. This Atlanta has a high school football mascot named after a small, furry mammal.
And the hometown pride runs deep.
Like many in town, Kate Stow’s ancestors were transplants from Georgia’s much larger Atlanta. Growing up, her mom was editor of the Atlanta Citizens Journal, which meant she “couldn’t get away with anything.”
She eventually moved to Louisiana for a corporate job. But after a divorce, Atlanta pulled her back home. She recently bought the Around Cass County Magazine, one of the main chronicles of Atlanta life.
“Everybody here knows everybody. It can be good and it can be bad.”
Confusion over the two Atlantas is also a fact of life. She has had more packages than she can count accidentally wind up in Georgia. And when she tells outsiders she’s from Atlanta, Texas, she’s grown accustomed to the puzzled looks.
Her stock response: “When people look at me funny, I’ll say we’re the second-largest Atlanta.”
Her only encounter with the first-largest Atlanta came during a layover at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
“That was the worst travel experience I ever had,” she said.
Still, there was a uniquely Atlanta silver lining.
“I bought some really cool stuff at the airport gift shop that said Atlanta on it.”
