[1] The area's structures were built by poor workers and settlers largely with slabs and leftover lumber from pioneer Jonathan Norcross's sawmill.
Reclaiming timber and debris discarded by the sawmill, poor settlers quickly began building crude shanties for their families.
About 15 years before the American Civil War was a time of ill repute for Atlanta; the railroad town was known for vice and political corruption.
Slabtown was considered a "wicked development" that offended "the good citizens of Atlanta, as crimes were often committed there, and many of the young men fell into bad habits from frequenting Slab Town.
They sequenced visual and performance art installations, as well as historic site interpretations, at different points along the Atlanta BeltLine to draw the public.