Ansley Park was carved out of George Washington Collier's forested homestead of 600 acres. Edwin P. Ansley and four financial partners bought 200 acres near Peachtree Street known as Land Lot 105 in 1904. The neighborhood was the first suburb (remember the city limits stopped at 14th Street) to be created for the automobile, and it became a showplace for the work of Atlanta's top 20th century architects such as Neel Reid, A. Ten Eyck Brown, and Walter Thomas Dowling. Edwin Ansley also deeded the subdivision's five parks-Ansley, Yonah, Winn, McClatchey and Eubanks- to the city on the condition they would always be maintained as greenspaces for the public.
In the late 1960's Ansley Park was a neighborhood on the brink. Many of its homes had been converted to apartments, halfway houses, and the area even sported two successful brothels. Amidst this deterioration the Ansley Park Civic Association was organized and immediately commissioned a study which laid the groundwork for restoring the neighborhood. Citizens and Southern Bank agreed to stop red-lining Ansley Park and began qualifying families for mortgages. This began the area's slow and steady progress to the viable, vibrant community it is today.
