Some Gainesville homes were still without electricity and used kerosene for both heating and lighting in the late 1940s when the idea for a public housing project began to take shape. The demolition of Atlanta Street Apartments, a federal housing complex on Gainesville’s E.E. Butler Parkway, brings to mind the beginnings of the Gainesville Housing Authority and low-rent public housing. Jim Chapman of the housing authority traced the beginnings of the agency and its first housing initiative.