Benjamin Bomar

Benjamin Franklin Bomar (August 9, 1816 – February 1, 1868) was the second mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. Bomar was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina to Reverend Thomas Bomar and Elizabeth Carlton High and studied medicine in Charleston. He practiced medicine in America's first gold rush town of Dahlonega, Georgia for a number of years until he tired of the winters in the Appalachian Mountains. He heard good things about Texas from his brother, Dr. Alexander H. Bomar who was serving in the Mexican-American War and decided to move his family there. On the way with his wife and two children, he arrived in Atlanta on April 30, 1847, fell in love with the bustling young town and settled there, running a general merchandise business on Whitehall St.

The young town soon-after received its first charter and elections were held December 1847 and Moses Formwalt was made mayor, Bomar its alderman and five were elected councilmen all for one year terms. The next year, Bomar was elected mayor at the age of 32, as a member of the Free and Rowdy Party.

In 1849, he co-founded Atlanta's first successful newspaper, The Daily Intelligencer. That same year, he was elected mayor and during his term he selected and purchased 6 acres (24,000 m²) at $75 per acre to serve as the new Oakland Cemetery.

He never practiced medicine regularly again. When Fulton County was formed as Atlanta's new home in 1854, he became the first clerk of its Superior Court which he remained as late as 1859, when his residence was on the Marietta road a mile outside of town (roughly where Howell Mill splits off today).

He was 44 at the outbreak of the American Civil War. He volunteered and served as the paymaster of the Georgia's 28th Infantry at a rank of captain. At the evacuation of the city following the Battle of Atlanta, his family refugeed to Macon, Georgia. After Lee's surrender, he rejoined the family in Atlanta but by then his health was broken and he died less than three years later. He was buried at Oakland Cemetery.