Atlanta's Oldest Church: Saved from Sherman's Torch

Irish missionary Father John Barry established the Church of the Immaculate Conception here in eighteen forty-eight, making it the first Catholic parish in Atlanta. A frame church was finished in eighteen forty-eight. The congregation was small and the city was young.

When Union General William Sherman's army prepared to burn Atlanta in eighteen sixty-four, Father Thomas O'Reilly, the Irish-born pastor, went directly to General Henry Slocum and appealed for mercy. His plea worked. While much of downtown Atlanta turned to ash, five churches and the City Hall courthouse were spared. The cornerstone of the current stone structure was laid in eighteen sixty-nine and dedicated in eighteen seventy-three. Designated a Shrine in nineteen fifty-four, it is today the oldest standing complete building in downtown Atlanta. Every other structure from that era either burned or was torn down. This one survived because a priest knocked on a general's door.