The M. A. Ferst Company was founded in Atlanta in 1923 and made graphite lead for pencils. In 1924, the company was renamed Scripto, and at one time was the largest employer in Atlanta. In 1931, a factory was built at 423 Houston Street (now John Wesley Dobbs Avenue) to manufacture mechanical pencils. From the 1930s to the 1960s, operations expanded to include plant buildings, offices and research facilities that eventually covered the entire block west of Boulevard. The plant was closed in 1977, and sold to the National Park Service in 1994.
The site also was a part of the civil rights movement. In November 1964, the International Chemical Workers Union called a strike against Scripto, upset with proposed pay raises of 4% for skilled workers and 2% for unskilled workers (only six of Scripto's 700 black employees were skilled workers). Martin Luther King, Jr. walked the picket line in December 1964, a day after his return from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. The strike was resolved in January 1965. Soil at the site was contaminated with arsenic, petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, cyanide and lead. The site was cleaned up using a combination of excavation and chemical stabilization from 1992 to 1996. The area is now used as a parking lot for the MLK National Historic Site.