Friday, February 3, 2012

Krog Street Stove Works Bridge

The Atlanta Stove Works bridge over Krog Street, another well known "bridge to nowhere". Top photo is from November 1997 and the second one was taken February 2, 2012. The bridge is still there but the building it was connected to is now a parking lot. Anyone out there know why it was demolished?


These buildings date back to the late 1800's. Atlanta Stove Works produced pot belly stoves and cast iron pans

This bit of history comes from Krog Bar, one of the dozen or so businesses now located in this complex: Krog Street was originally Wallace Street and was renamed in 1892 for Frederick Krog, who was important in early Atlanta railroads and had lived nearby. Coincidentally, he died in 1892 .

About the word "KROG" from Sweden: Krog is a little "better" than a pub or bar - krog is an old word for a restaurant that serves food as well as drinks, and would even sometimes have a band and a small dance floor.

This 1911 Sanborn insurance map shows the Stove Works only on the west side of Krog St. The missing building in the above photo housed the office, warehouse & shipping department, and the polishing & erecting area. The railroad tracks at left will become part of the Atlanta beltline.


The layout of the complex when I photographed it in the 1990s was pretty much the same as in this 1949 aerial view. (You can find it by looking for the bridge over the road.) The Old Fourth Ward water tower is at top left in this view and Edgewood runs across the bottom of the photo. If you haven't seen Georgia State's online aerial photo atlas of Atlanta from 1949, do yourself a favor and check it out HERE.

Google directions to this location:


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7 comments:

  1. Thanks so much, what a pleasure to find this.

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  2. Thank you! I just discovered the Architecture Tourist. Great stuff!

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  3. The other building was demolished because it had become structurally unsound.

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  4. Krog Street! I remember driving to see a band there one night in the mid-90's with my friend Brittany & joking about how sinister the name sounded. Cabbagetown looked kind of scary in the dark. A few years later it was touted as an up-and-coming hipster neighborhood, but I see that not everything has changed so much.

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  5. The parking lot where the bridge leads to was also planned to be a 4 or 5 story condo building built by the owner of the current property. They had over 40% sold pre construction as the bank required but the bank pulled the plug anyway.

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  6. Pretty sure that was a bridge over to some of the shipping department at one time. ASW was a great company for over 85 years in that location. There was stamped steel manufacturing in ATL and the foundry was mostly in Birmingham.

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