Joel Hurt

Joel Hurt (1850–1926) was an important businessman and developer in Atlanta active in the late 19th century through the early 20th century.

Hurt was born on July 31, 1850, in Hurtsboro, Alabama, to Lucy Apperson Long (1822–1915) and Joel Hurt, Sr. (1813–1861). The town was originally named Hurtville for Joel Hurt, Sr. After attending Auburn Methodist College in Auburn, Alabama, for one year, he then enrolled at the University of Georgia in Athens, graduating in 1871 with a degree in civil engineering. He married Annie Bright Woodruff, and they had six children.

He began his career in the railroad business, surveying first in the western United States the rail bed that became the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. He also surveyed a small spur off the Richmond and Danville line to Athens, Georgia.

In 1875, Hurt moved to Atlanta, where he organized the Atlanta Building and Loan Association, which he ran for thirty-two years. He also co-founded the Trust Company of Georgia - now part of Suntrust - and, starting in 1895, was its president for nine years. In 1882, he organized the East Atlanta Land Company, where he designed and developed Inman Park, a residential area connected to the city center by his Atlanta and Edgewood Street Railway Company, which opened along Edgewood Avenue in 1886. It was Atlanta's first electric streetcar line, and it was the first profitable electric line in America. In 1880, he filed what would be US 365258  for an interesting thermal water valve.^ Then in 1887, he filed No. 374,188 for a new style of valve cock for faucets handling water under pressure.^

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