Almost Gone with the Wind
Act I — A Humble Beginning
She called it The Dump. Margaret Mitchell, already a seasoned reporter for the Atlanta Journal, moved into the cramped ground-floor apartment at 979 Crescent Avenue in 1925 with her new husband, John Marsh. The building - a brick relic from 1899, one of Atlanta’s first of its kind, had been shifted off Peachtree Street in 1913 and converted into ten modest apartments by 1919. The residents called the complex the Windsor Apartments, and later the Crescent Avenue Apartments. Mitchell had another name for her particular unit “The Dump”.
Yet it was in that very apartment, hunched over a typewriter wedged into an alcove, that Mitchell spent seven years crafting the novel that would define a city, an era, and American literature itself. From 1925 to 1932, ‘Gone with the Wind’ took shape in that little room in that little apartment. By 1932, Mitchell and Marsh had saved enough to move north to the Russell Apartments on 17th Street, leaving Crescent Avenue behind. The Dump, as far as anyone knew, had served its purpose. The building continued sheltering Atlanta residents for decades, until 1978 when the last tenants moved out and the doors closed for good.
Act II — The First Dangers
Vacancy brought danger. In the early 1980s, the building suffered its first serious fire - likely set by vagrants seeking warmth or shelter. The blaze consumed the southwest corner and ravaged the roof. The structure that had once housed one of America’s most celebrated authors now stood partially charred, open to the sky, its future deeply uncertain.
Then came the developers. In the fall of 1987, Trammell Crow, Inc. put forward a proposal to demolish the building entirely and replace it with a large office complex like they had done across the street. It was a rational business decision on paper. But internationally, it ignited a grassroots firestorm of a different kind.
Citizens, historians, and literary admirers rallied. Petitions circulated. Meetings were held. And Mayor Andrew Young had his mind changed to drag his feet and decline to sign the demolition permit. The decision triggered a lawsuit from Trammell Crow that dragged on for years - but it bought time. Time to organize. Time to fundraise. Time to dream of what the building could become.
Act III — September 17, 1994
Hope had been building. Money was slowly coming in. Restoration plans were drawn up. And then, in the early morning hours of September 17, 1994, tragedy happened again. A fire tore through the building. The cause was suspected arson. The damage was severe. The story ran on the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the following Monday, a city shaken but not yet broken. Many held onto hope. The building had survived fire before. It could survive again. The question was whether anyone with the resources to restore it would step forward. Ninety days later, they did.
On December 15, 1994, the Atlanta Journal reported that Daimler-Benz, the German automaker, would serve as the lead sponsor of the restoration. Their plan: fund the rebuilding of the Margaret Mitchell House, use it to host guests during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, then hand the property over to the City of Atlanta as a permanent museum. It was an extraordinary act of international goodwill and cultural investment.
Act IV — May 12, 1996
With Daimler-Benz’s backing, restoration moved quickly. The building was nearly fully restored. The scheduled reopening was set for June 30, 1996, just in time for the Summer Olympics, when the eyes of the world would be on Atlanta. Then, just forty days before that date, fire stuck again. In the early wee hours of Sunday, May 12, 1996, arsonists struck. The blaze heavily damaged the building that had survived so much. Remarkably, the specific apartment where Mitchell had written ‘Gone with the Wind’ was largely spared, as if fate itself refused to let the most sacred space be taken. But the rest of the structure bore fresh wounds.
Mary Rose Taylor, who had founded the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum and poured years of her life into its salvation, was photographed weeping in front of the charred ruin.
The image became emblematic of a city’s grief. To see a person cry before a burned building is to understand something about what places mean to people - not merely as bricks and mortar, but as vessels of memory, identity, and collective pride. “The apartment where she had written her masterpiece survived. As if fate itself refused to let the most sacred space be taken.”
Act V — The House That Would Not Fall
Less than six weeks after the second arson, on June 21, 1996, the Margaret Mitchell House now fire-scarred, battered, incomplete - was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The listing was both symbolic and practical: an official acknowledgment of its significance, and a statement of belief that the building had a future worth protecting. One year later, it opened. The eve of the grand reopening was celebrated across a full page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on May 15, 1997. After arson, lawsuits, demolition threats, international rescue, and two devastating fires within two years of each other, the Margaret Mitchell House welcomed its first visitors as a museum. Atlanta had refused to give up on it.
Epilogue — Still Standing in the Wind
Today, the Margaret Mitchell House is one of Atlanta’s beloved historic attractions. The site is owned by the Atlanta History Center and serves as both a museum and an event venue, hosting gatherings large and small in the very spaces that once burned. Margaret Mitchell never lived to see what her apartment would become. She died in 1949, struck by a car on Peachtree Street - just a few blocks north from where she once typed, page after page of the story of Scarlett O’Hara’s refusal to be defeated. It seems fitting that the building itself has proven to be just as stubborn.
