George W. Adair

George Washington Adair (March 1, 1823 – September 29, 1899) was a real-estate developer in post Civil War Atlanta.

Adair was born of Scots-Irish parentage in rural Morgan County, Georgia. John F. Adair, his father, was a wheelwright , and in 1825, shortly after the birth of George, the family moved to DeKalb County. His mother died in 1835; his father sent him to Decatur to enter the employ of Green B. Butler as a store clerk.

There he met James Calhoun, William H. Dabney, Charles Murphy and Ephraim M. Poole, who supported him with the means to study at the Decatur Academy. After two years, he took up the study of law in Covington, Georgia, and two years later he was admitted to the bar.

To satisfy his debts, Adair took a position as a conductor on the Georgia Railroad, a job he held for four years. After leaving the railroad, he spent some time at Covington, and Charleston. Adair moved to Atlanta in 1854 at the age of 31 and there established what would be his permanent home.

Under the firm name of Adair and Ezzard, Adair embarked in the mercantile business, but after not entirely successful two years, he launched into the general trading, auctioning and real estate business, which would engage him throughout the remainder of his career.

During the Civil War, Adair was a newspaperman and a cotton speculator. He already owned the Gate City Guardian newspaper when in 1861 he bought the Atlanta Southern Confederacy and merged the two keeping the name of the latter, assisted by J. Henly Smith. After the paper went under. Adair became an aide on the staff of Gen. N.B. Forrest, serving the confederacy until the end of hostilities in 1865.

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