Joseph Thompson

Who was Joseph Thompson?

Dr. Joseph Thompson was an early settler of Atlanta, Georgia, hotelier, and real-estate investor.

Born to a Pennsylvania-bred family in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, he practiced medicine as a youth. He moved to the new town of Decatur, where he married Mary Ann Tomlinson Young in 1827. He ran a stage coach between the state capital, Milledgeville, and Tuscumbia, Alabama, by way of Decatur, where he kept an inn. He was an important man in town, friend of Judge William Ezzard and John Glen, and was entrusted by the citizenry to make sure that the terminus of the Western & Atlantic Railroad not be their little town. As Terminus grew, the Georgia Railroad built a brick hotel building for railroad workers and asked Dr. Thompson to run it.

He and his family arrived in recently founded Atlanta in 1845. He ran the Atlanta Hotel until its destruction after the Battle of Atlanta. The Atlanta Hotel was the largest and best hotel in town at the time and he was known as a genial host. His witticisms there were often quoted in the Editor's Drawer feature of Harper's Magazine. He had many residents there including Atlanta's first mayor Moses Formwalt and Alexander Stephens.