Mountain Park, Fulton County's smallest city, turns 100 in 2027. A half-square-mile wildlife refuge with no businesses, two lakes and 550 people sits surrounded on three sides by Roswell.

Mayor Bill Kolbrener, who took office in early 2024 after succeeding longtime Mayor Jim Still, has expressed interest in marking the centennial, though no specific celebration plans have been announced. His immediate focus, he told Appen Media columnist Bob Meyers in a July 23 report, is infrastructure and erosion control.

"We are a great and proud city. We are also an anomaly," Kolbrener said. "We have no income from businesses, so we must be wise and efficient with money."

The city has no commercial zoning and generates zero business tax revenue, relying entirely on residential property taxes. Kolbrener, a developer with 30 years of experience, has also pushed for Mountain Park to become more involved with other Fulton County cities.

The Roswell connection

Mountain Park has contracted police and emergency medical services from Roswell since 1998, according to city records. In 2021, it added Roswell fire department services and the city's 911 hotline, replacing a volunteer fire department. Mountain Park Elementary School, part of the Fulton County School District, sits in Roswell just outside the city limits.

A summer resort turned wildlife refuge

Six businessmen, three of them Southern Railway employees, formed the Mountain Park Improvement Club in the 1920s. Their attorney was Stephens Mitchell, president of the Atlanta Bar Association and brother of "Gone with the Wind" author Margaret Mitchell.

Before incorporation, the area was a summer resort for Atlantans. A series of 1925 Atlanta Journal ads promoted 1,000 campsites at $10 each, with the first lot selling on April 1, 1925. By 1929, the Atlanta Constitution reported about 100 cottages built and occupied.

The city holds two lakes: the 18-acre Lake Cherful, named for Cherokee and Fulton counties, and the 36-acre Lake Garrett, named for William Garrett, the farmer who sold the land to the founders. The community is a state-designated wildlife refuge with only residential zoning.

In 1989, Mountain Park became the first municipality in Georgia to mandate a recycling program, according to the city's official website.