A new opera house, DeGive's Grand Theatre, opens on Peachtree. Wheat Street is renamed Auburn Avenue. Tech wins, 22-6, with help from Leonard Wood, who will later command Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. A replica of the Lion of Lucerne, Switzerland, is unveiled in Oakland Cemetary to honor the unknown Confederate dead. The huge Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895 opens in Piedmont Park with a switch thrown long-distance by Pres.
Whites cheer while many blacks are critical.
1896 Atlanta University Professor W.E.B. DuBois begins leading conferences on living conditions of urban blacks. The English-American Building, now known as the Flatiron Building, is erected on Peachtree north of Five Points. Named headquarters of the new military Department of the Gulf in anticipation of the invasion of Cuba, Atlanta devotes the entire year to participation of the Spanish-American War, culminating in the December visit of Pres. William McKinley and some of his cabinet for a post-war Peace Jubilee. 1899 Eugene Mitchell, president of the Young Men's Library Association, reads in a newspaper that Andrew Carnegie is giving away money to cities, and writes him a letter.