50. STONE MOUNTAIN,
16 miles east of Atlanta on US 78, is known to geologists as the
largest granite monadnock in North America and to the general public
for the partly completed Confederate monument carved on its sheer
northeastern wall. From the highway the mountain appears bare except
for a few dark spots of scrubby pine growth. The gray color of the
stone is faintly tinged with the green of moss and lichen that covers
it, and the surface is broken by deep cracks that run in long jagged
lines down the slopes. Here and there are darker streaks formed by iron
oxide and organic matter washed down from the summit.
Stone Mountain is elliptical in shape, with an axis 2 miles long. It
rises 1,686 feet above sea level and 650 feet above the surrounding
piedmont plain, measures more than 7 miles around the base, and has an
estimated weight of 1,250,000,000 tons, although it is believed that
the exposed section is only a small part of the entire mass. The
mountain was formed perhaps two hundred million years ago as a molten
mass underground. Further scientific research indicates that it
appeared above the surface of the earth not by upheaval but by the
gradual erosion of the soil and softer rocks that once overlaid the
granite. The mass slowly cooled, its surface breaking into crevices
with contraction, and a few hardy shrubs began to take root.
The sheer side on which the carving is shown is almost 900 feet
high. The scope of the original plan for the sculpture is scarcely
indicated by the work that has been begun. Actually, the memorial gives
the appearance of a gigantic sketch, with Augustus Lukeman's projected
figures showing barely in outline. The heads of Jefferson Davis,
President of the Confederacy, and General Stonewall Jackson are only
faintly suggested, but the majestic form of General Robert E. Lee on
his horse Traveller emerges more definitely. From the crown of the
generals hat to the horses hoof the distance is 130 feet, the height of
an average 10-story building. The granite chips scraped out by the
stonecutters form a scattered pile on the ground below the monument.
A clearer conception of the finished memorial can be had from the
photographs and plaster molds on exhibition at the museum across the
highway. These working models provide an interesting study of the
problems that confronted the sculptors while working, for the great
figures had to be rendered with a proportionate change of scale from
head to foot, as the feet are so much nearer the view of spectators
below. In order to give a just illusion, Lee's aquiline nose was shown
as upturned.
The southern slope of the mountain can be climbed; although there is
no road, the ascent is not difficult for a reasonably active climber.
From the flat summit is a clear panoramic view of the surrounding
countryside with its wooded slopes, green pastures, and clusters of
houses.
The mountain was probably used by prehistoric Indians as a refuge
from the gigantic animals that were forced south by glaciers. When the
first white settlers came to this region in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, they found Indians using the mountain as a vantage
point for sending smoke signals. A number of boulders laid in regular
formation were probably the remains of a fortress or a sacrificial
altar. These rocks were not moved until work was begun on the
Confederate monument.
In 1790 Alexander McGillivray, a half-breed chieftain of the Creeks,
met here with a band of tribesmen to discuss plans for selling the
mountain to the Federal Government. Shortly after this conference he
went with a selected group to New York, and the entire mountain was
sold for a pony and a gun. Nor did the early white owners set an
inordinate value on their mammoth acquisition, for it is recorded that
E.V. Sanford, a plantation proprietor who later purchased it, was
annoyed because the mountain stood in the path of his plowing and sold
it for a five-foot flintlock rifle.
In due course the property, after passing successively into the
hands of several private owners, was developed as a popular summer
resort. By 1825 there were a stagecoach terminus and a hotel at the
base of the mountain. A long observation tower, 175 feet high, built on
a 40-foot base and having a winding interior stairway, was erected on
the summit in 1836. Three years later the village of New Gibraltar,
later Stone Mountain, was established. During the 1850's the town came
into considerable local prominence when the Southern Central
Agricultural Society, which later grew into the State Department of
Agriculture, held its first four fairs here.
Although the mountain itself had no part in the War between the
States, important troop movements were effected in the vicinity during
the summer of 1864, when Atlanta was under siege. Here the Federal
troops, bent on destroying Confederate communications, took up the iron
rails of the Georgia Railroad and rendered them useless by heating them
and bending them around trees.
Between 1845 and 1850 some efforts were made to quarry the stone
from the partly disintegrated ledges, but these enterprises had little
success. The first systematic effort at quarrying the granite was made
in 1869, when John T. Glenn, S.M. Inman, and J.A. Alexander, of
Atlanta, chartered the Stone Mountain Granite and Railway Company.
Their output was small, however, and the property was purchased in 1880
by Samuel Venable, who for many years quarried the granite for use in
bridges, buildings, and roadways.
The huge mass of solid granite was a remarkable enough sight to
attract many tourists even before 1914, when William Terrell, an
Atlanta lawyer, suggested the plan of carving a Confederate monument on
the perpendicular side. In the following year the United Daughters of
the Confederacy invited the well-known sculptor Gutzon Borglum to
submit a design, which was accepted. The northeastern side of the
mountain was donated by Venable, his sister Mrs. Frank T. Mason, and
his nieces Mrs. Priestly Orme and Mrs. Walter G. Roper, a gift valued
at approximately $1,000,000. The site was dedicated on May 20, 1916.
Although no sculptural work was done before the end of the World War,
Borglum aroused considerable excitement throughout the country by his
lectures on the memorial plan.
During the early years of the 1920's, public enthusiasm mounted
high. The carving was begun, much of it done by Borglum himself
suspended by cables over the mountainside. The outlines for the figures
were set forth by a projection an acre in size cast from a two-inch
stereopticon slide by means of a specially prepared triple-lens
projection lamp. General Lee's sculptured head was unveiled on his
birthday, January 19, 1924. During this time the Stone Mountain
Memorial Association raised funds by the sale of memorial 5¢ coins
at $1 each.
Soon after the Lee head was unveiled, a dispute over the proper
distribution of these coins caused the association to break into bitter
factions. Borglum left the project after destroying his working models
except for the completed figure of Jefferson Davis, giving as his
reason his unwillingness to have his work completed by a successor.
Another sculptor, Augustus Lukeman, was engaged. Borglum's head of Lee
was blasted away, and Lukeman began directing the carving of another
memorial. Funds were soon exhausted, however, and public approval had
been chilled by the acrimonious controversy. The work was suspended in
1930. Plans were advanced in 1941 for completing the memorial, and
Julian Harris, an Atlanta sculptor, has been selected for this work.
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