[2] In the 1850s, William Ezzard, who would later serve multiple terms as mayor of Atlanta, had a two-story brick house built on that city block and lived there until selling the property in 1880.

[3] On August 3, 1901, the Piedmont Hotel Company spent $125,000 in purchasing the city block from the multiple owners who owned the individual land lots, which included politician M. Hoke Smith.

[8] The opening was a big event for the city, as thousands of people gathered to see the hotel's interior and prompting the Atlanta chief of police to dispatch officers to keep order.

[10] That afternoon, The Atlanta Journal published a front page story on the opening, calling the hotel "the handsomest and most complete in the South".

[13] In the 1920s, Margaret Mitchell interviewed inventor Hudson Maxim at his room at the Piedmont for a story published by The Atlanta Journal.

[14] Other notable individuals who stayed at the hotel include United States Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, politician William Jennings Bryan, United States Army General Leonard Wood, business magnate J. Ogden Armour, racing driver Barney Oldfield, and writer Thomas Dixon Jr.[11] In 1921, representatives from 14 universities in the southern United States met at the hotel to establish the Southern Conference.

[21] In 1932, Georgia politician Charles R. Crisp based his headquarters at the hotel during his unsuccessful bid in the that year's Senate elections.

[22] On March 2, 1965, the stockholders of the Piedmont Hotel Company announced that they had accepted a $3.5 million offer from the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States to purchase the property, where they intended to construct a new office building.

[23][24] The following day, The Atlanta Constitution published an editorial about the hotel, commending it for its high quality and saying in part about its demolition, "It is with regret that we see an old friend, the Piedmont, depart".