Georgia Natural Wonder #7 - Stone Mountain. 1,254

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #7 - Stone Mountain

Stone Mountain is a quartz monzonite dome monadnock and the site of Stone Mountain Park near Stone Mountain, Georgia. At its summit, the elevation is 1,686 feet above sea level and 825 feet above the surrounding area. Stone Mountain is well known for not only its geology, but also the enormous rock relief on its north face, the largest bas-relief in the world. The carving depicts three Confederate figures, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and has been the subject of widespread controversy.



Stone Mountain was once owned by the Venable Brothers and was the site of the founding of the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915. It was purchased by the State of Georgia in 1958 "as a memorial to the Confederacy." Stone Mountain Park officially opened on April 14, 1965 — 100 years to the day after Lincoln's assassination. It is the most visited destination in the state of Georgia. Stone Mountain is more than 5 miles in circumference at its base. The summit of the mountain can be reached by a walk-up trail on the west side of the mountain or by the Skyride aerial tram.



Stone Mountain is a pluton, a type of igneous intrusion. Primarily composed of quartz monzonite, the dome of Stone Mountain was formed during the formation of the Blue Ridge Mountains around 300–350 million years ago. It formed as a result of the upwelling of magma from within the Earth's crust. This magma solidified to form granite within the crust five to ten miles below the surface. The Stone Mountain pluton continues underground 9 miles at its longest point into Gwinnett County. Numerous reference books and Georgia literature have dubbed Stone Mountain as “the largest exposed piece of granite in the world"



Over time, erosion eventually exposed the present mountain of more resistant igneous rock. This intrusion of granite also gave rise to Panola Mountain GNW #55 and Arabia Mountain,GNW #83  both in DeKalb County, smaller outcroppings farther south of Stone Mountain.



The top of the mountain is a landscape of bare rock and rock pools, and it provides views of the surrounding area including the skyline of downtown Atlanta, often Kennesaw Mountain, and on very clear days even the Appalachian Mountains.



The mountain's lower slopes are wooded. The rare Georgia oak was first discovered at the summit, and several specimens can easily be found along the walk-up trail and in the woods around the base of the mountain. In the fall, the extremely rare Confederate yellow daisy flowers appear on the mountain, growing in rock crevices and in the large wooded areas.



The largest bas-relief sculpture in the world, the Confederate Memorial Carving depicts three Confederate leaders of the Civil War: President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (and their favorite horses, "Blackjack", "Traveller", and "Little Sorrel", respectively). The entire carved surface measures 1.57 acres. The carving of the three men towers 400 feet above the ground, measures 76 by 158 feet, and is recessed 42 feet into the mountain. The deepest point of the carving is at Lee's right elbow, which is 12 feet to the mountain's surface.



The carving was conceived by Mrs. C. Helen Plane, a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). The Venable Brothers, owners of the mountain, deeded the north face of the mountain to the UDC in 1916. The UDC was given 12 years to complete a sizable Civil War monument. Gutzon Borglum was commissioned to do the carving. Borglum abandoned the project in 1925 (and later went on to begin Mount Rushmore). The US Mint issued a 1925 Commemorative silver US half dollar, bearing the words "Stone Mountain", as part of a fundraiser for the monument. American sculptor Augustus Lukeman continued until 1928, when further work stopped for thirty years. In 1941 segregationist Governor Eugene Talmadge formed the Stone Mountain Memorial Association (SMMA) to continue work on the memorial, but the project was delayed once again by the U.S. entry into World War II (1941–45).



In response to Brown v. Board of Education of 1954, and the birth of the Civil Rights Movement, in 1958, at the urging of segregationist Governor Marvin Griffin, the Georgia legislature approved a measure to purchase Stone Mountain at a price of $1,125,000. In 1963, Walker Hancock was selected to complete the carving, and work began in 1964.



The carving was completed by Roy Faulkner, who later operated the Stone Mountain Carving Museum (now closed) on nearby Memorial Drive commemorating the carving's history. The carving was completed on March 3, 1972. An extensive archival collection related to the project is now at Emory University, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1915 to 1930; the finding aid provides a history of the project, and an index of the papers contained in the collection.



Stone Mountain Park officially opened on April 14, 1965 — 100 years to the day after Lincoln's assassination. Four flags of the Confederacy are flown.



The Stone Mountain Memorial Lawn "contains...thirteen terraces — one for each Confederate state.... Each terrace flies the flag that the state flew as member of the Confederacy."


Laser Show two hours before Kick Off.


Men and Women of the Confederacy.

The rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan – the second Klan — was inspired by D. W. Griffith's 1915 Klan-glorifying film, The Birth of a Nation. It was followed in August by the highly publicized lynching of Leo Frank in nearby Marietta, Georgia. He was found guilty for the murder of Mary Phagan, but his death sentence commuted by the Governor. On November 25 of the same year, Thanksgiving Day, a small group, including fifteen robed and hooded "charter members" of the new organization, met at the summit of Stone Mountain to create a new iteration of the Klan, the Knights of Mary Phagan. They were led by William J. Simmons, and included two elderly members of the original Klan. As part of their ceremony, they set up on the summit an altar covered with a flag, opened a Bible, and burned a 16-foot cross.


New pledges

Fundraising for the monument resumed in 1923. In October of that year, Venable granted the Klan easement with perpetual right to hold celebrations as they desired. The influence of the UDC continued, in support of Mrs. Plane's vision of a carving explicitly for the purpose of creating a Confederate memorial.



The UDC established the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Association (SMCMA) for fundraising and on-site supervision of the project. Venable and Borglum, who were both closely associated with the Klan, arranged to pack the SMCMA with Klan members. The SMCMA, along with the United Daughters of the Confederacy, continued fundraising efforts. Of the $250,000 raised, part came from the federal government, which in 1925 issued special fifty-cent coins with the soldiers Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on them. The image on the verso of the coin was based upon 'The Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson' executed in 1869 by Everett B. D. Fabrino Julio (American, b. St. Helena 1843 – 1879, emigrated to US 1860) itself an icon of 'Lost Cause' mythology, now in the American Civil War Museum (until 2012 the Museum of the Confederacy), Richmond VA.



When the state completed the purchase in 1960, it condemned the property to remove Venable's agreement to allow the Klan perpetual right to hold meetings on the premises.



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 GNW #34. The wall is believed to have been built by early Native American inhabitants of the area, although its purpose remains unclear. 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, or removed by the commercial quarrying operation. The mountain was as well the eastern end of the Campbellton Trail, a Native American path that ran through what is now the Atlanta area.



Europeans first learned of the mountain in 1567, when Spanish explorers were told of a mountain farther 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 the early 19th century, the area was known as Rock Mountain. After the founding of DeKalb County and the county seat of Decatur in 1822, Stone Mountain was a natural recreation area; it was common for young couples on dates to ride to the mountain on horseback. The mountain is easy to climb and there has been a path since the nineteenth century. Entrepreneur Aaron Cloud built a 165 feet 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.



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. In recent years, granite suppliers in Georgia sent stone samples cut from Stone Mountain to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Foundation to be considered for use in a planned monument in King's honor; the foundation later chose to use granite imported from China. Quarrying during earlier periods also destroyed several spectacular geological features on Stone Mountain, such as the Devil's Crossroads, which was located on top of the mountain.



Martin Luther King, Jr. mentioned the monument in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C., when he said "let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!"
 


During the 1996 Summer Olympics, Stone Mountain Park provided venues for Olympic events in tennis, archery and track cycling. The venues for archery and cycling were temporary and are now part of the songbird and habitat trail.

 

According to George Weiblen's annotated calendar for Monday, May 7, 1928: "Mail plane crashed on mountain at 8:00 P.M." The pilot, Johnny S. Kytle (1905–1931), not only survived the crash, but managed to grab the mail and walk down the mountain. Around dusk on September 16, 2003, in clear weather, a small airplane circled the mountain five times, then crashed headlong into the south side, burst into flames and killed the pilot. A witness testifying at the NTSB investigation stated that the pilot, a 69-year-old accountant, had threatened on multiple occasions to commit suicide by flying into the mountain. The official NTSB accident report lists the probable cause as "The pilot's intentional flight into the ground for the purpose of suicide while impaired by alcohol."



Elias Nour is among the most interesting of all individuals associated with Stone Mountain. In 1927, when Elias was only thirteen years old, he rescued a boy who had slipped part of the way down the steep side of the mountain.



This was the start of a long string of brave rescue operations. Over the following 37 years he would rescue dozens of people (accounts vary but the number was probably 36 and was surely over 30) and six dogs, receiving the Carnegie Medal of Heroism in 1953. He once commented that people seemed reluctant to thank him while the dogs showed no hesitation in demonstrating their appreciation.



In October, 1933, Elias, then nineteen, drove a burning Model T Ford named "Depression" over the side of the mountain for a wildly excited group of spectators.


Always hanging around the Mountain in case someone needed rescue.

In September, 1934, he began participating in the "Suicide Derby", a race to climb down the steep side of the mountain. He won this race with a time of only four minutes and seventeen seconds. A month later, in the second derby, he improved his time by two seconds, an improvement for which he credited a wasp nest he encountered. His name is carved on the walk up trail.



In June, 1942, Elias organized a scrap rubber drive to benefit the US military. He sent another car to its demise off the mountaintop, this time decorated with war enemies in place of depression slogans. Spectators were charged admission: scrap rubber. About a ton of it was collected.



Took rubber off rims for final plunge.



Elias was hired as Safety Director of Stone Mountain in 1959. Not surprisingly, one of his first steps was to have a fence installed around the summit area, the greatest safety improvement Stone Mountain has ever enjoyed.



Elias worked on the carving under all three chief carving superintendents: Gutzon Borglum, Augustus Lukeman, and Walker Hancock, often doing some of the most dangerous tasks and always without incident.



He died on the 18th of November, 1993 at the age of 79.



The short broadcast tower on the top of the mountain transmits two non-commercial stations: television station WGTV TV 8, and weather radio station KEC80 on 162.55 MHz. FM radio station WABE FM 90.1 was located on this tower from 1984 until 2005, when it was required to relocate to accommodate WGTV's digital conversion. W266BW FM 101.1 now has a permit as well. Atop the tower also sits the W4BOC amateur radio repeater, which operates on a frequency of 146.760 mhz. The tower is also used for the park's Project 25 two-way radio systems.



On summer evenings the mountain hosts the Stone Mountain Laser Show Spectacular, a fireworks and laser light display. The laser lightshow projects moving images of the Deep South as well as Georgia history onto the Confederate Memorial carving on the side of the mountain. During Memorial Day Weekend of 2011, Stone Mountain unveiled its overhaul of the laser show, dubbed Mountainvision. This incorporates digital projectors, lasers, special effects, and pyrotechnics. Lee Greenwood sings how He's Proud to be an American, while the lasers light up the Confederate Carving.



The Antebellum Plantation is a collection of historic buildings relocated from around the state of Georgia, including three plantation manor-houses dating from 1794, 1850, and 1845; two slave cabins; a barn; and other outbuildings.



The daily concert from our 732-bell Carillon is one of the true joys of Stone Mountain Park. The Carillon was donated by our friends at Coca-Cola after being exhibited in the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. The Park's carillon has been played by Mabel Sharp for over 30 years.



A covered bridge, dating from 1892, which originally spanned the Oconee River in Athens, Georgia.



Bridge when it crossed Oconee.



A grist mill, dating from 1869 and moved to the park in 1965.



Crossroads is a recreation of an 1872 southern town with several attractions that include a modern 4-D movie theater, an adventure mini-golf course, a duck tour ride, stores and restaurants. Craft demonstrators include glass blowing and candy-making. The Great Barn is a children's activity area that features 65 interactive games, climbing structures, trampoline floors, and slides. Sky Hike is a family ropes adventure course. Geyser Towers is a playground featuring a large fountain at the entrance. Riverboat replaced by Duck Boat today.



There is so much that has come and gone, Antique Car Museum, Game Ranch, War in Georgia, Putt Putt Golf. There are 27 of the finest holes of golf in Georgia.



Best Winter park in Georgia.



TRD addendum since the original post.



I love hiking up and hanging out at the back side of the Mountain.





Lot of trees and rocks up here.



Real special view back to Atlanta Downtown and Midtown.



Our GNW gals today are actually on site.