1884 Plans are announced for a Southern baseball league to include Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock and Atlanta. The telephone company says it has 450 customers. The only long distance service available is to Decatur and costs 15 cents per five minutes. Grover Cleveland becomes the first Democrat to be elected president since pre-Civil War days. Henry Grady, who had a small brass cannon made in anticipation of the occasion, fires it and leads a cheering crowd to the Capitol.
Prohibitionists win a referendum barring liquor from Fulton County.
Fearing Fulton going dry will hurt sales of his French Wine Cola, pharmacist John Pemberton goes into his lab at his 107 Marietta St home and comes out with a new headache remedy he calls Coca-Cola. Jefferson Davis comes to town and joins a crowd estimated at 100,000 for the dedication of a monument to the recently-departed Georgia statesman, Benjamin Hill. The state establishes a technological school and Atlanta beats out other cities for what will become Georga Tech. A circular painting of the Battle of Atlanta by a group of German artists goes on display in Detroit. The Piedmont Exposition opens on the property of the newly-formed Driving Club, later to become Piedmont Park.