[8] The newspaper became such a force that by 1871 it had overwhelmed the Daily Intelligencer, the only Atlanta paper to survive the American Civil War.

[9] In 1876, Captain Evan Howell (a former Intelligencer city editor) purchased the 50 percent interest in the paper from E. Y. Clarke and became its editor-in-chief.

[10] During the 1880s, editor Henry W. Grady was a spokesman for the "New South", encouraging industrial development as well as the founding of Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

[6] The Constitution established one of the first radio broadcasting stations, WGM, which began operating on March 17, 1922, two days after the debut of the Journal's WSB.

Its equipment was donated to what was then known as Georgia School of Technology, which used it to help launch WBBF (later WGST, now WGKA AM 920) in January 1924.

Celestine Sibley was an award-winning reporter, editor, and beloved columnist for the Constitution from 1941 to 1999 and wrote 25 fiction and nonfiction books about Southern life.

After her death, the Georgia House of Representatives named its press gallery in her honor as a mark of affection and respect.

In 1960, Jack Nelson won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting by exposing abuses at Milledgeville State Hospital for the mentally ill.

Essential for the development of her 1936 Gone with the Wind was the series of profiles of prominent Georgia Civil War generals she wrote for The Atlanta Journal's Sunday magazine, the research for which, scholars believe, led her to her work on the novel.

Cox Enterprises bought the Constitution in June 1950, bringing both newspapers under one ownership and combining sales and administrative offices.

[clarification needed] In 1989, Bill Dedman received the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for The Color of Money, his exposé on racial discrimination in mortgage lending, or redlining, by Atlanta banks.

[15] The newspapers' editor, Bill Kovach, had resigned in November 1988 after the stories on banks and others had ruffled feathers in Atlanta and among corporate leadership, some of whom complained of a "take-no-prisoners" editorial approach.

[16] In 1993, Mike Toner received the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for When Bugs Fight Back, his series about organisms and their resistance to antibiotics and pesticides.

Due to the downturn in the newspaper industry and competing media sources, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contracted distribution dramatically in the late 2000s to serve only the metro area.

Later that year, the AJC consolidated its printing operations by transferring the downtown production center to the Gwinnett County facility.

[20] In November 2010, the company donated its former downtown headquarters to the city of Atlanta, which plans to convert the building into a fire and police training academy.

[21] In February 2024, the newspaper announced it would return its headquarters to midtown Atlanta after nearly 14 years, citing a desire "to be at the beating heart of the city" it is named for.

The company signed a lease on 21,000 square feet of newsroom and studio space in the Promenade Central building on Peachtree Street, planning to complete its relocation by the end of the year.

[22] In 1996, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was the first newspaper to report on Centennial Olympic Park bombing hero Richard Jewell being accused of actually being the bomber, citing leaked information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Before social media became popular, the Metro and Sports sections contained "The Vent" features, where readers expressed opinions about current events.