Stone Mountain

This article is about the Stone Mountain in Georgia, USA. For other peaks, see Stone Mountain (disambiguation).

History

Early history

Human habitation of Stone Mountain and its surroundings date back into prehistory. When the mountain was first encountered by European explorers, its summit was encircled by a rock wall, similar to that still to be found on Georgia's Fort Mountain. The wall is believed to have been built by early Native American inhabitants of the area, although its purpose is still unclear. Sadly by the beginning of the 20th century the wall had disappeared, the rocks having been taken away by early visitors as souvenirs, rolled down the rockface for fun, or removed by the commercial quarrying operation.

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Europeans first learned of the mountain in 1597, when Spanish explorers were told of a mountain further inland which was "very high, shining when the sun set like a fire." By this time, the Stone Mountain area was inhabited by the Creek and (to a lesser extent) Cherokee peoples. In 1790 the mountain was the site of a meeting initiated by President George Washington in hopes of negotiating a peace treaty with the Creek. Instead a series of wars ensued, and the Creek were forced to cede the land to the state of Georgia in 1821.

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Entrepreneur Aaron Cloud built a 165 foot (50 m) wooden observation tower at the summit of the mountain in 1838, but it was destroyed by a storm and replaced by a much smaller tower in 1851. Visitors to the mountain would travel to the area by rail and road, and then walk up the 1.1 mile mountaintop trail to the top, where Cloud also had a restaurant and club.

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Granite quarrying started at Stone Mountain in the 1830s, but became a major industry following the completion of a railroad spur to the quarry site in 1847. This line was rebuilt by the Georgia Railroad in 1869. Over the years, Stone Mountain granite was used in many buildings and structures, including the locks of the Panama Canal, the steps to the East Wing of the United States Capitol and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Unfortunately, quarrying also destroyed several spectacular geological features on Stone Mountain, such as the Devil's Crossroads, which was located on top of the mountain.

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In 1887 Stone Mountain was purchased for $45,000 by the Venable Brothers of Atlanta, who would continue to quarry the mountain for 24 more years, and descendents of the Venable family would retain ownership of the mountain until it was purchased by the State of Georgia in the 1950s.

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History of the memorial and the Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan activities at Stone Mountain are deep-rooted, although the original conception of the memorial pre-dates the 1915 revival of the Klan. The idea had originated in 1909, when many Americans were celebrating the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Mrs. C. Helen Plane of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was the prime mover in the creation of a monument at Stone Mountain. Sam Venable asked Gutzon Borglum to speak to Plane. Borglum had a preliminary model finished by 1917, but World War I distracted potential patrons.

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The revival of the Ku Klux Klan was emboldened by the release of D. W. Griffith's Klan-glorifying film The Birth of a Nation, and by the lynching of Leo Frank, who was accused the murder of Mary Phagan. On November 25, 1915, a group of robed and hooded men met at Stone Mountain to create a new edition of the Klan, which had been dormant since it was suppressed by the federal government during Reconstruction. They were led by William J. Simmons, and they included a group calling itself the Knights of Mary Phagan. A cross was burned, and the oath was administered by Nathan Bedford Forrest II, the grandson of the original Imperial Grand Wizard, ex-Gen. Nathan B. Forrest, and was witnessed by the owner of Stone Mountain, Samuel Venable.

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Fundraising for the monument resumed in 1923, and in October of that year, Venable granted the Klan easement with perpetual right to hold celebrations as they desired. Because of their deep involvement with the early fund-raising and their increasing political clout in Georgia, the Klan, along with the United Daughters of the Confederacy, were able to influence the ideology of the carving, and they strongly supported an explicitly Confederate memorial. Gutzon Borglum became a Klan member himself in the course of his association with the Stone Mountain project. Of the $250,000 raised, part came directly from the Ku Klux Klan, but part came from the federal government, which in 1924 issued special fifty-cent coins with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on them.

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With an unrealistic three year time limit imposed on the project, Borglum set to work, and by General Lee's birthday in 1924, a formal unveiling of Lee's finished head was attended by a large and appreciative audience. In 1925, Borglum became involved in disputes with his patrons over the coin money and his support of D. C. Stephenson, and his contract was canceled in February. Before he left Georgia, Borglum smashed his preliminary models in rage. He went on to carve Mount Rushmore.

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In April 1925 Augustus Lukeman was hired to complete the work, and three years later Borglum's finished work was dynamited from the face of the mountain. Funds ran dry, however, and he had only completed Lee's head when the project was cancelled due to lateness and insufficient funds in 1928. When Lukeman died in 1935, the uncompleted project had not been worked on for several years.

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Recent history

In 1958, the state government of Georgia bought Stone Mountain and revived the project. In 1963, Walker Kirkland Hancock was selected to complete the carving, and work began in 1964. The carving was finally completed in 1970 by Roy Faulkner, who later operated a museum (now closed) on nearby Memorial Drive commemorating the carving's history.

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The Klan held a major meeting at Stone Mountain in 1975, and at Venable's invitation, the Klan held annual Labor Day meetings on Venable's property, where 60-foot crosses were burned. In reaction to this history, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech includes the line "let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia."

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Guides at the monument originally wore Confederate gray, but in recent years the state has changed the mountain into a state park and a commercial attraction involving a laser show and nature walks, and the park's web site does not mention the Ku Klux Klan at all.

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During the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Stone Mountain Park provided venues for Olympic events in archery, tennis, and cycling.

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On September 16, 2003, a small airplane crashed http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20030922X01565 around dusk into the back of the mountain, a remote cliff area which is not normally accessible. The pilot, the airplane's only occupant, was confirmed dead, and although the official accident report notes no probable cause, a witness "stated that the accident pilot threatened on multiple occasions when she knew him to commit suicide by flying into Stone Mountain." Firefighters had to take the skylift up and then rappel more than halfway down to the site of the wreckage. According to George Weiblen's annotated calendar for Monday, 7 May, 1928: "Mail plane crashed on mountain at 8:00 P.M." The only other known crash on the mountain was in 1957.

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