Atlanta construction manager uncovers the city's long-buried history
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Bryan Capps (center) says the everyday items Atlantans carried and used are just as historic as well-known landmarks. Photos: Courtesy of Bryan Capps
One of the construction experts building the developments shaping Atlanta's future is also finding forgotten items from the city's past.
Why it matters: Bryan Capps, a development project manager by trade and an amateur urban archaeologist by passion, is unearthing a long overlooked layer of Atlanta history.
Zoom in: Capps' Relics of Old Atlanta Instagram account is a growing repository of the interesting objects he's discovered while working in South Downtown and elsewhere.
- Using old newspaper articles, property maps and historical documents, Capps finds the forgotten stories linked to a glass bottle or floor tiles from a once-bustling Downtown hotel.
He doesn't sell the items he discovers on job sites; he cleans, catalogs and stores them in hopes of finding an institution willing to give them a home.
The big picture: Up to 20% of land within Atlanta's city limits was a documented Civil War battle site, Capps said, and anyone who owns a pre-1885 house probably has a privy pit in their backyard.
- "Atlanta is not a lost cause for history or archaeology or architecture," he said. "There's a good chance … that wherever you're walking or wherever your house is in Atlanta, there's history underfoot. It exists."
Fun fact: Capps and his father spent nine days disassembling a probable Civil War-era house at Emory University slated for demolition.
- What father and son salvaged is now in storage in case Capps wants to one day rebuild the house elsewhere or donate the materials to a nonprofit or public entity.
Catch up quick: Capps' "lifelong obsession" with history and his dream of becoming Indiana Jones started as a kid.
- He was obsessed with the Titanic late in the toddler stage and received his first metal detector in elementary school.
Yes, but: "Swashbuckling archaeologist" wasn't a surefire career path, he said, but construction provided him an opportunity to pursue his passion.
- Even when working on conventional commercial projects, Capps said, he's on the lookout for historic objects.
What's next: Capps is in talks with Georgia State University anthropology professor Jeffrey Glover to conduct an urban archaeology field exercise in an unearthed Downtown trash pit.
- He also helped Cobb Landmarks and West Georgia University researchers on a dendrochronology project using tree rings to date timber in buildings whose ages aren't certain.
Capps' favorite finds
🥤 A circa 1900 Hutchinson Coca-Cola bottle that Capps found roughly two blocks from where the soft drink was first sold.
🪙 An 1899 Norwegian coin from what Capps thinks was a Downtown hotel trash pit filled with broken dishes, cutlery and other garbage.
- Its origin is unknowable — did a Norwegian leave it here or did an Atlantan bring it home? — but it shows that Atlanta has been an international city for a long time, he said.
🐀 A small collection of rat's nests discovered in the walls and basements of historic Downtown buildings serve as time capsules of ephemera dug up and hoarded by rodents.