International Cotton Exposition (1881)

International Cotton Exposition (I.C.E) was a world's fair held in Atlanta, Georgia, from October 5 to December 31 of 1881. The location was along the Western & Atlantic Railroad tracks near the present-day King Plow Arts Center development in the West Midtown area. It planned to show the progress made since the city's destruction during the Battle of Atlanta and new developments in cotton production.

Placed a short train ride from downtown, it was designed so that the largest building could later be used as a cotton mill (see Exposition Cotton Mills). A quarter of a million people attended, generating between $220,000 and $250,000 in receipts, split evenly between sales and gate receipts.

The idea of holding such an exhibition in the South was first suggested by Edward Atkinson of New York, who in August 1880 wrote a letter to a New York journal discussing the great waste incident to the methods then in use in the gathering and handling of the cotton crop and suggested the exhibition, to bring all of those interested in the production of this great Southern staple for the purpose of improvement. The Atlanta Constitution republished the letter and urged the importance of some action in regard thereto.

A few weeks after the publication of this letter it was announced that Mr. Atkinson was about to make a Southern trip for the purpose of putting the suggestion into form. Mr. H. I. Kimball, being impressed with the importance of the enterprise and personally acquainted with Mr. Atkinson, invited him to Atlanta to address the people on the subject. This invitation Mr. Atkinson accepted, and at the solicitation of many prominent citizens of Atlanta he delivered, on October 28, 1880, an address in the state Senate chamber, in which he advocated Atlanta as the proper place in which to hold a cotton exhibition, such as would result in devising improved methods in the cultivation of the cotton as well as to be a stimulus to the entire industrial development of this section.

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