CDC Headquarters!

What Is the CDC Headquarters?

This is the main campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC!

What Makes It Historical?

The CDC was founded on July 1, 1946 as the Communicable Disease Center, whose main focus was the eradication of malaria! For this reason, it began in the South, where malaria mosquitoes were abundant. After its first year, its Atlanta campus opened here on 15 acres that previously belonged to Emory University, and diversified its disease monitoring. By the end of 1947, it was designated the official response agency for disasters and epidemics (FEMA didn’t come around until 1979)!

The milestones have been many since then, but the CDC has led immunization and eradication campaigns against malaria, smallpox, polio, rabies, tetanus, tuberculosis, measles, and venereal diseases! They’ve investigated lead poisoning, birth defects, and the health effects of smoking and firearms, not to mention pandemics, from the flus of 1957, 1968, 1971, and 2009 to the coronaviruses, SARS (2002), MERS (2012), and COVID-19 (2019)!

Since 1970, the Communicable Disease Center has become the Center (later Centers) for Disease Control. There are CDC centers in 8 other states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, as well as quarantine facilities in 20 cities! The first director was Louis L. Williams, Jr. and the most recent director at the time I visited, was Rochelle Walensky!

How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?

Become a member of the Georgia Historical Society!
Donate to the Georgia Historical Society!
Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!