In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Before arriving in Atlanta, Georgia, I received a call from a local WSB-AM radio reporter named Jon Lewis who wanted to talk about my search for unmarked historic sites throughout the country. I confessed I only had two sites to check out in Atlanta--one of which was already marked, and the second one I had yet to locate on a map. So throughout the day it was Jon who guided me around the city pointing out one fascinating, little-known site after another.

A few highlights:

To date, the worst hotel fire in the United States occurred in what was once the Winecoff Hotel on 176 Peachtree Street, and is now the Ellis Hotel. One hundred and nineteen people were killed on December 7, 1946, in what was supposedly a "fireproof" building--despite the fact it had no sprinklers or fire escapes. (The tragedy prompted cities across the country to enact stronger fire safety measures.) A young graduate student named Arnold Hardy won the Pulitzer Prize--and he was the first amateur to do so--for a picture he took of a woman falling from the eleventh floor. Miraculously, she survived. The building was put on the National Register of Historic Places only earlier this year.