Gone With the Wind Itinerary

Gone With the Wind and the Civil War

The Marietta Gone With the Wind Museum at historic Brumby Hall has an extensive collection of Gone with the Wind movie memorabilia and features the dramatized sights and sounds of Atlanta during the Civil War and Reconstruction, narrated by Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler.

Lunch

Serving Southern staples for more than 65 years, Mary Mac’s Tea Room is a landmark Midtown eatery. The destination for a mix of Atlanta diehards, Mary Mac’s offers entrees such as chicken and dumplings, country fried steak, grilled whole catfish, sweet potato soufflé and fried green tomatoes.

Or

The Swan Coach House, located on the Buckhead campus of Atlanta History Center, has been the home base for wedding and baby showers, birthday celebrations and special gatherings where women of all ages chat and enjoy the signature Swan’s Favorite — chicken salad in a pastry timbale, cheese straws and frozen fruit salad.

Afternoon

The Atlanta History Center features two historic houses, signature exhibits and “Turning Point: The American Civil War,” the largest collection of Civil War memorabilia in the world. In addition to hundreds of pieces, this exhibit also explores the human and economic sides of the conflict, as well as the residual effects in today’s world. In addition, The Battle of Atlanta has been moved from its original location in Grant Park adjacent to Zoo Atlanta, and fully-restored at Atlanta History Center. Cyclorama: The Big Picture is the centerpiece of this new multi-media experience and showcases this 132-year-old hand-painted work of art that stands 49 feet tall, is longer than a football field, and weighs 10,000 pounds.

Also affiliated with the Atlanta History Center is the Margaret Mitchell House or “The Dump,” as its namesake lovingly called her Midtown apartment. The museum includes the restored rooms where most of “Gone With the Wind” was penned, complete with Mitchell’s writing desk, period furnishings and original leaded glass windows. Take a guided tour through the cinematic “Gone With the Wind” movie exhibition and explore the life of Mitchell. 
(NOTE: Margaret Mitchell House is the Midtown campus of Atlanta History Center and is not open to the public at this time)

Or

Historic Oakland Cemetery is home to more than 70,000 souls and a trove of enthralling tales. It is also the final resting place of many soldiers, as well as Margaret Mitchell. The cemetery offers guided and self-guided tours each day.

Dinner

The “Gone With the Wind”- themed Pittypat’s Porch has been serving old Southern charm for more than 40 years. Dishes include Aunt Pittypat’s fried chicken, Rhett’s mixed grill and, of course, Georgia peach cobbler. Pittypat’s Porch now also serves lunch, which can be enjoyed from the restaurant’s new outdoor porch on both levels.

Or

For simple yet sophisticated dining, head to Livingston Restaurant + Bar at the Georgian Terrace Hotel. Tucked beneath the grand staircase in the hotel where Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable and Margaret Mitchell attended the after-party for the Atlanta premiere of “Gone With the Wind,” Livingston features a menu of seasonal flavors and hand-crafted cocktails.

Other places of interest in and around Atlanta

• Visit Stone Mountain Park (Stone Mountain) for a view of the faces of Confederate soldiers carved into the world’s largest exposed piece of granite. The park also houses an antebellum plantation, composed of original buildings built between 1790 and 1845, representing an authentic pre-Civil War Georgia experience.
  
• “Gone With the Wind” – The Tour (Jonesboro) is a 60-minute tour of the “Gone With the Wind” Historic District, featuring the “real” stories behind the novel, including costumed guides.
  
• Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park (Kennesaw) preserves a Civil War battleground of the Atlanta campaign.
  
• Rhodes Hall (Midtown) is nicknamed “The Castle on Peachtree” and features nine stained glass windows entitled “The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy.”
  
• The Road to Tara Museum & Gift Shop (Jonesboro) exhibits a collection of Margaret Mitchell’s china, as well as original props, costume reproductions, collectible plates, a foreign edition library and an extensive photo gallery.
  
• Smith Plantation Home (Roswell) is an 1845 antebellum home that features fully functioning outbuilding including a cookhouse, carriage house, barn and sharecropper’s cabin. Bulloch Hall, also in Roswell, is the 1839 childhood home of Mittie Bulloch, who married Theodore Roosevelt Sr in this house.  They became the parents of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26^th president of the United States.
  
• The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History (Duluth) highlights the story of a Confederate conductor who chased his stolen “General” locomotive from Atlanta to Chattanooga. It also exhibits more than 50,000 Civil War and railroad artifacts.
  
• At the Stately Oaks Historic Home & Plantation Community (Jonesboro), antebellum ladies and gents guide tours of this 1839 home and its grounds, including a one-room schoolhouse, log cabin and country store.