William Berry Hartsfield (1890-1971) was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Charles Green Hartsfield (1849-1918) and Victoria Dagnall Hartsfield (1854-1936). He married Pearl Williams in 1913 and had two children: William Berry Hartsfield Jr. (1916-1993) and Mildred Hartsfield Cheshire (1919-2012). They divorced in 1962 and he married Tollie Tolan that same year.

Hartsfield was first elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1922, where he helped establish Atlanta's first airport and was a frequent proponent of air transportation in Atlanta, earning the reputation as Atlanta’s “father of aviation.” He left politics for a short period to focus on his law practice but returned in 1932 and elected as a Fulton County representative to the Georgia legislature and served in that role until 1936.

Hartfield was elected as Atlanta's 49th mayor in 1937 until he lost re-election to Roy Le Craw in 1940. When Le Craw was drafted by the Georgia National Guard after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, he resigned from his position and Hartsfield was re-elected as mayor in a special election. During his tenure as mayor, the city limits tripled in size, his administration oversaw the construction of the city’s expressway system and the development of several parks. It was during this time that Atlanta saw beginning of desegregation with the hiring of the first Black policeman in 1947, the integration of the city’s bus system in 1957, and the integration of the Atlanta Public School system in 1961. In 1955, Hartsfield coined the phrase “City Too Busy to Hate,” after the desegregation of Atlanta golf courses, which would become a slogan for his successor, Ivan Allen Jr.’s, mayoral campaign. He served until his retirement in 1961, making him Atlanta’s longest serving mayor. Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was named in Hartsfield's honor, along with Mayor Maynard Jackson.