Levi B. Nelson

Who is Levi B. Nelson?

Levi Buell Nelson, was an Atlanta, Georgia city councilman, founder of the Gate City Street Railroad Company.

Nelson worked in Cortland, New York then Toledo, Iowa before serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. In 1881 he came to Atlanta with his former real estate partner C.P. N. Barker. They invested in farmland in Georgia. Nelson was elected to Atlanta city council and served on the sanitary, relief and water works committees. His home, "one of the handsomest homes in Atlanta" on Boulevard in today's Old Fourth Ward, then an elegant avenue of mansions, burned down in the Great Atlanta fire of 1917. In 1921 the 6 acre site was acquired by Atlanta Medical Center for its present location.