ATLANTA — The addition of the famed Cyclorama painting is expected to increase the number of people who visit the Atlanta History Center, the museum’s president told a business association this week.
“I think we’ll see an increase in visitation. It’s part of a set piece of everything we have on our 33 acres,” the Northside Neighbor quoted Atlanta History Center President and CEO Sheffield Hale as telling the Buckhead Business Association (BBA). “There’s a history of all these Cycloramas going broke because there have been many people that go once and don’t come back. So we don’t think it will be (a huge surge of visitors). But this is something they can’t see anywhere else.”
The American Panorama Co. created the painting, titled The Battle of Atlanta, in the 1880s in Milwaukee. It is said to be one of only two such paintings on display in the country; the other is at Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg National Military Park.
Meanwhile, the famed Texas locomotive was delivered to the museum in May. The new exhibit, featuring both the painting and the locomotive is set to open in fall 2018.
The locomotive exhibit is expected to open this fall. For some reason, the Texas has been restored to its 1880s appearance, rather than its Civil War-era appearance when it famously participated in the Great Locomotive Chase.
“Talking about how the railroads built Atlanta is what we felt was our charge,” Atlanta History Center Vice President of Properties Jackson McQuigg said in a news release earlier this year. “There are many stories we’re going to tell with the Texas, including the Great Locomotive Chase.”
The Texas pulled passenger and freight trains in the Atlanta and North Georgia region for 51 years. The steamer retired from service in 1907.
