Hannibal Ingalls Kimball (May 16, 1832 – April 28, 1895) was an American entrepreneur and important businessman in post-Civil War Atlanta, Georgia.

He was the fifth boy of 10 children by his father, Peter Kimball, a highly regarded wheelwright, and his mother, Betsey Emerson.

[1] Many of their customers were in the South, and after the start of the American Civil War many debts went unpaid and the business failed.

[2] In 1868, shortly after the congress agreed to move the capital, Kimball purchased an abandoned opera house and constructed the first capitol building.

In 1870, the city contracted Kimball to construct the grounds and buildings for an agricultural fair to be held that year in Oglethorpe Park.

[2] Wallace Putnam Reed, an Atlanta historian, once declared that it was "equal in all respects to the fifth Avenue Hotel in New York and far superior to anything in the South.

The area of Atlanta bounded by Pryor, Decator, Lloyd, and Alabama Streets was home to a decrepit railroad car shed.

[2] Along with the depot, Kimball also built tracks along Alabama Street that resulted in the warehouse district moving to that location.

[2] Capitalists came from cities including New York and Boston to invest in the area, leading to $100,000 in profit for Kimball.

[2] In 1880, a letter from Edward Adkinson of Boston was posted in the New York Herald suggesting that a cotton exposition be held in the South.

[2] The state legislature soon agreed to the idea and made Kimball Director-General of the 1881 International Cotton Exposition.

[2] Soon, at the dedication ceremony of the new chamber of commerce building, Kimball's friend Henry W. Grady proposed holding a great commercial exposition in the city within two months.