Explore the real-world places that appear in Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Tara Plantation (Clayton County), Road to Tara Museum, Five Points and Peachtree Street, Atlanta Car Shed (Zero Mile Post), Aunt Pittypat's House and 6 more.
Jonesboro area, Clayton County — O'Hara family plantation
Tara is the red-earth plantation of Gerald O'Hara, a self-made Irish immigrant, and his wife Ellen. Scarlett returns here after fleeing burning Atlanta to find her mother dead, her father broken, and the fields stripped by Union troops. Standing in the ruined cotton fields, she vows she will never be hungry again, and the land becomes the anchor of her identity.
Tara is fictional, but Mitchell placed it near Jonesboro in Clayton County, where fighting occurred in the 1864 Battle of Jonesboro during the Atlanta Campaign. Real plantations of the area were stripped or burned by Sherman's forces.
The Jonesboro area is a suburban part of metro Atlanta. No actual Tara exists, though local heritage sites interpret the region's Civil War history.
Jonesboro Depot, 104 N Main St — Clayton County's Gone With the Wind museum
Jonesboro is the town nearest Tara. Scarlett passes through it on her desperate trip home from Atlanta, and the fighting around it brings the war to the O'Hara fields. The Yankees later raid the area, and Scarlett kills a Union deserter at Tara to protect her home.
The Jonesboro depot was a Macon and Western Railroad station and a key objective in the Battle of Jonesboro in August 1864. The Confederate loss there forced the evacuation of Atlanta.
The restored depot houses the Road to Tara Museum, which displays Gone With the Wind memorabilia, including items from the film. It also serves as the local visitor center.
Visit: Road to Tara Museum (museum)
Downtown Atlanta — the city's heart in the novel
Peachtree Street and the Five Points junction are the bustling center of wartime Atlanta, where wagons, soldiers, and gossips crowd the streets. Scarlett drives along Peachtree through the war years, and Rhett Butler's blockade-running wealth displays itself in the finery of the city. Characters such as Aunt Pittypat and Dr. Meade move through these streets as the siege tightens.
Five Points formed around the intersection of Peachtree, Decatur, and Marietta streets and grew as the railroad hub of Georgia. Atlanta was heavily damaged when Sherman's troops burned military and industrial sites in November 1864.
Five Points is the center of downtown Atlanta's business and MARTA transit network. Peachtree Street remains its principal thoroughfare.
Underground Atlanta — the railroad terminus
The railroad depot is the heart of wartime Atlanta, where trains bring wounded soldiers, supplies, and news. Scarlett is among the crowds as casualty lists are posted, and the depot area is the scene of the desperate days during the siege. Rhett Butler and Scarlett escape the burning depot area with Melanie, her newborn son, and Prissy in a stolen wagon.
Atlanta was founded in 1837 as Terminus, the end of the Western and Atlantic Railroad, marked by the Zero Mile Post. Sherman's troops destroyed the depot and much of the rail infrastructure in 1864.
The Zero Mile Post marker sits near Underground Atlanta. The area is a historic downtown district of shops and tourism.
Visit: Zero Mile Post (monument)
Peachtree Street — Hamilton family home in Atlanta
Aunt Pittypat Hamilton's house is where the widowed Scarlett moves, living with Melanie. Scarlett is seen here in mourning clothes yet longing for dances and society. During the siege she shelters Melanie through childbirth with only Prissy to assist, and later Rhett arrives with a wagon and horse to carry them off.
Wealthy Atlantans of the era built homes along Peachtree Street, which developed from an old Native trail. Most of those mansions were destroyed in the war or later demolished for commercial development.
The area around the Peachtree corridor is dense with office towers, hotels, and shops. The original residences no longer exist.
Atlanta History Center, 130 West Paces Ferry Road NW — Battle of Atlanta painting
The Battle of Atlanta, July 1864, is the military event that reshapes the lives of Scarlett and Melanie. Shells fall on the city as Confederate forces under Hood try to hold it, and the battle lines turn civilians into refugees. The siege that follows shapes Scarlett's choices and her hardening resolve.
The Cyclorama is a huge circular painting of the 1864 Battle of Atlanta, created in Milwaukee in 1886. It was displayed in Grant Park for decades before moving to the Atlanta History Center in 2019.
The Cyclorama is displayed at the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead. The campus also includes exhibits on Gone With the Wind and Atlanta's Civil War history.
Visit: Atlanta History Center (museum)
Peachtree Street — The red-brick house Rhett builds for Scarlett
After marrying Rhett Butler, Scarlett has a gaudy red-brick mansion built on Peachtree Street, with a staircase, ornate decoration, and a nursery for their daughter Bonnie Blue. Here Bonnie dies in a riding accident, Rhett crumbles in grief, and Scarlett's marriage fails. Melanie's death and Rhett's final departure follow, ending with Scarlett's famous resolve to think about it tomorrow at Tara.
Postwar Atlanta rebuilt rapidly, and Peachtree Street became lined with showy Victorian mansions built by the new rich. Most were demolished as the city expanded in the twentieth century.
The fictional mansion's neighborhood in Midtown is now filled with towers and cultural institutions. The Georgia Tech and Midtown area stand where such mansions once stood.
990 Peachtree Street NE — where Mitchell wrote the novel
Margaret Mitchell wrote most of Gone With the Wind in a small ground-floor apartment she called The Dump. Working from 1926 onward, she typed the story out of order, beginning with the final chapter. The manuscript piled up in envelopes before it was published in 1936.
The Tudor Revival building was constructed in 1899 and later divided into apartments. After years of neglect and fires in the 1990s, it was restored and opened as a museum in 1997.
The Margaret Mitchell House is a museum within the Midtown Atlanta area, with exhibits on Mitchell's life and the novel's history. It also contains the apartment where she wrote the book.
Visit: Margaret Mitchell House (museum)
248 Oakland Avenue SE — Atlanta's historic cemetery
Oakland Cemetery stands in for the city's wartime burial grounds, where soldiers from the Confederate army are interred. Mitchell's Atlanta was shaped by the thousands of dead and wounded from the nearby battles. The cemetery is the resting place of Margaret Mitchell herself.
Founded in 1850, Oakland holds thousands of Confederate soldiers and prominent Atlantans. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Oakland Cemetery is a public park and museum site offering tours, with the graves of Margaret Mitchell and Bobby Jones. It is one of Atlanta's best known historic landmarks.
Visit: Historic Oakland Cemetery (historic site)
Clayton County neighbors — the Wilkes family home
Twelve Oaks is the grand white-columned home of the Wilkes family, where John Wilkes hosts the famous barbecue. Scarlett learns that Ashley Wilkes is to marry his cousin Melanie Hamilton, and she makes a scene by confessing her love to him. Charles Hamilton, Rhett Butler, and Scarlett's rivalry with Melanie all appear here as the war news arrives.
Twelve Oaks is fictional, modeled on the large cotton plantations of Georgia's Piedmont region. Mitchell drew on the Greek Revival architecture of antebellum houses throughout the area.
No original Twelve Oaks exists. The surrounding Clayton County area is largely suburban development.
100 Carriage Lane, Jonesboro — Greek Revival house museum
Stately Oaks is often linked to Mitchell's Twelve Oaks because of its columned Greek Revival style. It evokes the world of the Wilkes barbecue and the antebellum society that vanishes in the war. Visitors see how Scarlett's world looked before the burning and ruin.
The house was built in 1839 by Jonesboro's Mr. Jones family and moved to its current location. It is preserved as a historic site in Jonesboro.
Stately Oaks is now a community historic site with tours and a small museum. It sits alongside other heritage displays connected with the Civil War and the novel.
Visit: Stately Oaks Historic Site (historic site)
More by Margaret Mitchell: All Margaret Mitchell books
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