Kirkwood, Atlanta

Kirkwood is a national historic designated neighborhood on the east side of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is a historic streetcar suburb, and was designed by architect Will Saunders. Kirkwood is situated entirely in DeKalb County, bordered by the neighborhoods of Lake Claire, East Lake, Edgewood, and Oakhurst. Kirkwood is bound on the north by DeKalb Avenue, on the south by Memorial Drive and Interstate 20, on the west by Montgomery Street, and on the east by 1st Ave.

Prior to the Civil War, the most prominent landholders in early Kirkwood were the Kirkpatrick, Dunwoody, and Clay families. The name Kirkwood was likely derived from a blending of the Kirkpatrick and Dunwoody family names.

James H. Kirkpatrick (1778–1853), a native of Ireland, settled in the area in 1827 and owned thousands of acres of property in Land Lots 111 and 112, in what are now the north Kirkwood and Lake Claire neighborhoods. His plantation estate was located just to the north of Georgia Railroad line near the vicinity of East Lake Road. At the time of his death, James Kirkpatrick’s personal estate was considered one of the largest in DeKalb County.

Jesse Clay (1786–1872), a native of Virginia, operated dairy farms on over 850 acres in Land Lots 206 and 207, in the southwest corner of the Kirkwood neighborhood. The Clay farmstead was located near present-day Clay Street. In addition to farming, Jesse Clay, his sons and his brother Green Clay also speculated in land development throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Aside from Gilliam Park, which was once a part of their property, the only vestige of the Clay family in Kirkwood today is the small, late nineteenth-century family cemetery located on the west side of Clifton Street NE, between Wade Street and Hosea L. Williams Drive.

Kirkwood traces its beginnings to residential development begun in the 1870s. While no one would consider Kirkwood a suburb of Atlanta today, an early tour book described it as an “area of beautiful suburban villas.” Kirkwood was an early streetcar suburb of Atlanta. By 1910 streetcars provided express service to and from Atlanta three times daily, and streetcars continued service along some streets including Kirkwood Road NE until the early 1950s.

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