The Atlanta Transit Company (ATC) ran the public transit

Public transport

Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...

 system in Atlanta

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

, in the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 state of Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

, from 1950 to 1972.

Since the 1920s, the Georgia Railway and Power Company (now Georgia Power

Georgia Power

Georgia Power is an electric utility headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is the largest of the four electric utilities that are owned and operated by Southern Company....

, a part of Southern Company

Southern Company

Southern Company is a public utility holding company of primarily electric utilities in the southern United States. It is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with executive offices also located in Birmingham, Alabama. The company is currently the 16th largest utility company in the world and the...

), had been losing money on transit. It commissioned a study from Beeler in 1926, but the suggestions were not enough to help. In the late-1940s most years saw double-digit percentage losses of ridership: from 125 million in 1946 down to 100 million in 1948 and finally 86 million in 1949.

In April 1949 Georgia Power ran its last of Atlanta's streetcars

Streetcars in Atlanta

Streetcars operated in Atlanta starting with horsecars in 1871; electric streetcar service started in the 1880s. The last streetcar service ended in 1949; the streetcar system was quickly replaced by a trolleybus system and with buses...

, and in May of the next year its drivers struck for five weeks, in the Atlanta transit strike of 1950

Atlanta transit strike of 1950

The Atlanta transit strike of 1950 was a lengthy transit strike that lasted from May 18, 1950 to November 16, 1950 in Atlanta, Georgia.A month after author Margaret Mitchell was struck and killed by a taxi during a year when trolleys had killed five, there was a call in the city to increase safety...

. During the strike, Georgia Power shopped for a buyer for its increasingly troubled transit business. Atlanta businessmen Clement Evans, Granger Hansell and Inman Brandon with Leland Anderson of Columbus, Georgia

Columbus, Georgia

Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 189,885. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2009, had an estimated population of 292,795...

 formed the ATC and purchased the transportation properties on June 23, 1950, more than a month into the strike. More than 1,300 employees signed on to the new company and ended their strike.

The system consisted of the trolleybus (trackless trolley) system

Trolleybuses in Atlanta

In Atlanta, Georgia, trolleybuses were a major component of the public transportation system in the middle decades of the 20th century, carrying some 80 percent of all transit riders during the period when the system was at its maximum size...

 as well as buses, mechanics, drivers and their union, Amalgamated Street Car Union Local 732.

Anderson was the president and in September 1950 a Georgia Power vice president, Jackson Dick, joined to become the chairman of the board.

One of the company's promotional drives was called Orchids for Operators, in which customers could nominate a helpful or courteous employee for that honor.

In 1963, ATC phased out trackless trolleys, which allowed the city to remove most overhead wires.

In 1965, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority or MARTA is the principal rapid-transit system in the Atlanta metropolitan area and the ninth-largest in the United States. Formed in 1971 as strictly a bus system, MARTA operates a network of bus routes linked to a rapid transit system consisting...

 (MARTA) was formed, and it began planning a new rail system. By 1972, when planning was mostly finished and Atlanta and Fulton and DeKalb Counties had signed on, MARTA purchased ATC for US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

13 million, making it the sole mass transit entity in the area.