Discover
Cascade Heights grew up around a set of springs on the old Sandtown Road. The springs are still there. So is the story of a neighborhood that pushed back and won.
Timeline
Cascade Road follows an old Creek path that ran from Stone Mountain to the village of Sandtown on the Chattahoochee. In the 1800s it was called Sandtown Road.
Confederate earthworks from the battle still line the ridges inside Cascade Springs Nature Preserve. You walk past them on the main trail.
Visitors came for the springs near the old Sandtown Road ford over Turkeyfoot Creek. Three small waterfalls spilling away from the road gave the area its name: Cascade.
Shops, offices, gas stations and churches grew up around Cascade Road. For the next 90 years this was where the neighborhood shopped, worshiped and met.
The city blocked Peyton and Harlan Roads to keep Black buyers out. A judge struck the barricades down on March 1, 1963. By the late 1960s Cascade Heights was a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Mayor Andrew Young renamed the Adams Park course for Alfred "Tup" Holmes, who led the fight to desegregate Atlanta's public golf courses in 1955.
On November 23, 2020, the Cascade Heights Commercial Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places, with 50 contributing buildings.
Former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, one of Cascade's own, is elected governor of Georgia on November 3. She is the first Black woman to hold the office.
The Peyton Road Affair
In December 1962, Dr. Clinton Warner, a Morehouse graduate and D-Day veteran, bought a home in Peyton Forest, a white subdivision in Cascade Heights. White neighbors asked Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. to stop more Black families from moving in.
On December 17 the Board of Aldermen approved barricades across Peyton Road and Harlan Road. They cut the main link between the Black and white sides of the neighborhood. Newspapers across the country called it Atlanta's Berlin Wall.
On March 1, 1963, a judge ruled the barricades unconstitutional. The mayor had them pulled down within minutes. He later wrote that he had been wrong.
The barricades lasted ten weeks. The neighborhood that grew up after them is still here.
Parks and greens
Cascade has the second densest tree canopy in Atlanta. Three big parks and two public golf courses sit within a short drive of Cascade Road.
One of the oldest forests inside the city limits, with a waterfall, artesian springs and a moss-covered stone springhouse.
Stone bridges, walking paths, a two-acre fishing lake and the Hank Aaron Baseball Complex.
A public park and nine-hole course just off Cascade Road. It's home to The First Tee of Atlanta, so you'll see a lot of young golfers.
Neighbors
Mayors, a Morehouse president, a home run king and a newspaper founder. Cascade has been home to a long list of people whose names you know.
From the archive.
Plan a visit
Park once near Cascade Road and Benjamin E. Mays Drive. Most of this is a short walk or a five-minute drive.
Grab a sidewalk table at 2315 Cascade Road and watch the street wake up.
Do the 1.9-mile loop at Cascade Springs. Wear shoes with grip. The rocks by the water are slippery.
Line up, point at what you want, and save room for banana pudding.
A quick round on a public course, or a bucket of balls if you're short on time.
Book Oreatha's, then walk over to Aiskrimu for ice cream.