I completely agree.

The story goes that in the 1940s Delta Air Lines was looking for a southern hub and the decision came down to BHM and ATL. BHM was an iron works town at the time and was larger, I think 1.1M to 800K. But BHM added an aviation fuel tax and ATL got Delta. Had that not happened, could the Big Ham be Atlanta? A lot of local historians think so.

But there's another part of the story. The history of the south post civil war is very interesting and multifaceted of course but to me it sounded like ATL was a mess until Bell Aircraft decided to put a B-24/B-29 manufacturing plant in Marietta. My father-in-law's dad built B-29s there until the day the war was over. Lockheed took over that plant and my father-in-law out of high school worked on the C-5s in the same building his dad had built B-29s. My father-in-law was working inside the nose once when someone on the outside drilled through his hand. Ouch. They obviously still build the C-130s but at a time I believe the C-141s... Buzz?

Anyways, you could probably argue Atlanta started to come out of the Gone with the Wind funk to modern society because of Bell and then Delta. Or so they say. It's history so it's arguable.



But I'd prefer it having been Alabama any day. ATL is... blah, but you carve out your place and it's alright.