Joel Hurt

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Joel Hurt (1850–1926) was an important businessman and developer of turn-of-the-century Atlanta.

Born in Hurtsboro, Alabama (a town named for his father, Joel Hurt, Sr. ), he went to college at Auburn University and graduated from the University of Georgia in 1871. He was in the railroad business, surveying first out West the bed that became the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, next he surveyed a small spur off the Richmond and Danville line to Athens, Georgia.

He moved to Atlanta in 1875 and made a quick impact. He organized the Atlanta Building and Loan Association which he ran for thirty-two years and co-founded the Trust Company 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 connected to the city by his Atlanta and Edgewood Street Railway Company which opened along Edgewood Ave in 1886 as Atlanta's first electric streetcar line.

To anchor the downtown end of his streetcar he built Atlanta's first skyscraper, the Equitable Building which in 1893 became the home of the two year old Trust Company.

His next land deal was to be Druid Hills for which he hired the Olmstead Brothers to design along a linear park around Ponce de Leon, but he sold the enterprise to Asa Candler for half a million dollars in 1908. He also built Atlanta's first fireproof theater, the Atlanta Theater (also on Edgewood) and his masterpiece, the Hurt Building (which still stands).

In 1940 land was donated to the city by the Trust Company and a park was dedicated as Hurt Park which lies across Peachtree Center Ave from the Hurt Building.