Mother Nature contributed her part some 300 million years ago when she burped up this great, granite monolith.
Even so, it took folks quite a while to decide what to do with the thing.First there was the Spaniard Juan Pardo, who came along in 1567. He envisioned it as a great treasure chest. The first European to record seeing the stone mountain, he came across it on a scouting trip that originated in St. Augustine, Fla. "A crystal mountain," he called it. "A great mountain that glistened in the sun and was surrounded with diamonds and rubies and other precious stones lying on the ground for the picking up." But he couldn't get 500 men to return with him to scoop up those gems. Just as well. They were not gems at all, but crystals of quartz.
George Washington, who had obviously heard of it, regarded the mountain as a landmark - an easily recognized meeting site for conferences between delegations he sent to the Cherokees and Creeks to arrange affairs between them and the new confederation of states.
The Venable family, who bought the mountain in 1887 for $48,000, figured it could be cut into pieces and hauled away. Their quarry supplied granite to such places as the Panama Canal locks, steps to the east wing of the U.S. Capitol and the dome of the gold repository in Fort Knox. But they cut up only a minor part of the rock.
It was not until 1915 that the Daughters of the Confederacy finally saw in the great stone the potential for the historic memorial it was to become. Even then, it was not until 1958 that the mountain was purchased by the state of Georgia and not until 1970 that the park was dedicated.
Today, the 3,200-acre park 16 miles east of Atlanta is one of the city's most-visited sites, drawing about 6 million visitors a year. They come for the history but also for the recreation, since Stone Mountain Park offers golf, tennis, swimming, hiking and other pleasures. There is a skylift to take people to the top of the mountain, an old-fashioned train to take them around the base and a paddleboat for rides on the lake. Three venues of the 1996 Summer Olympics - tennis, cycling and archery - will be found at the park.
But certainly the focal point of the park is the mountain itself, the 583 acres of exposed granite that make this the largest granite monolith in the world (even if it is considerably smaller than the great sandstone monolith in Australia, Ayres Rock). From the top, you can see far into the surrounding countryside - into three states on a clear day. You can hike across the rounded surface, see the stone patterns created by eons of erosion and marvel at the plants that have found a toehold for growth.
But the most amazing thing about the mountain is the stone carving.
For anyone who has read or seen "Gone With the Wind," Atlanta is indelibly linked to the War Between the States. So, it is fitting that one of the country's largest memorials to that war is found here at Stone Mountain. The 90-foot-by-190-foot carving on the face of the mountain features Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Southern Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, done in such epic proportions that workers can and did stand inside the horse's mouth to escape the rain.
It is billed as the world's largest piece of sculpture, and achieving the finished product was no easy task.
In 1915, the Daughters of the Confederacy came up with the idea of the carving, an epic monument that would match the Southern memories of the war. They hired stonemason Gutzon Borglum to do the work. The Venable family, who by then owned the mountain, agreed to donate the site, with the proviso that if the work was not finished in 12 years it would revert back to the family.
Borglum began the slow work in 1916, but it had to be suspended for World War I and was not resumed until 1923.
In 1925 Borglum was fired. Some say it was because there was a distortion in his work that he could not correct, so he made a big enough fuss that the Daughters of the Confederacy had to get rid of him. There is no way to tell, because all his work was chiseled away. Borglum, however, went on to fame in South Dakota with his carving of Mount Rushmore. At Stone Mountain, work languished.
A new carver was brought it, but by 1928 only Lee's head was finished, and the Venable family took back the land.
Thirty years passed, but the vision did not die. In 1958, Georgia purchased the land, and in 1964 carving resumed - this time using revolutionary new "thermo-jet" torches that could remove tons of granite at a time. Work proceeded under the direction of artist Roy Faulkner.
"Everything about the work was a challenge," wrote Faulkner later. "The danger was very real. I was aware every minute I was up there that a misstep, or a little carelessness, could drop me to my death. The wind helped keep me on my toes. When you hardly noticed a breeze on the ground, it could be gusting at 50 miles an hour, first into your back, then bouncing off the mountain into your face.
"For six years, I worried that I might make a mistake. After coming down in the evenings, I checked over the day's figures in the studio to make sure they were right. Then I drove home with them in my head, ate with them and often slept with them. The worst dream I ever had was the time I saw General Lee's head lying in the ditch at the base of the mountain."
In 1970, the carving was finished - Lee's head still intact. "I realized at all times that I was carving the largest piece of sculpture that man ever attempted, one that would last through eternity," said Faulkner. "You could hardly do anything more satisfying than that."
The stone carving, impressive as it is, is only part of the Civil War heritage found at Stone Mountain. Because of "GWTW," it seems that every visitor to Atlanta expects to see Tara. So, responding to this public interest, the Stone Mountain Park Association developed the Antebellum Plantation complex to show how the well-to-do Southern family lived around 1820-60.
Authentic structures from all over the state were moved to the park. The major difference found here from a real plantation is the scale. Buildings here are placed close enough that they can be easily visited. On a working plantation they would be scattered over several acres.
The plantation was the most important economic and social institution of the South, says Atlanta writer Norman Shavin. It was a concept that flowered only after 1800, he says, and it didn't reach Atlanta until the 1840s. And while most were not created in the image of Tara (most were much more modest), they did attempt to be self-contained agricultural entities.
The Antebellum Plantation at Stone Mountain features a collection of buildings that showcase life under this plan. There is the Overseer's House, with its smokehouse and well. And Dr. Powell's Office, which represents a servant's residence. And the Thornton House, believed to be the oldest restored house in the state. All are in stark contrast to the Slave Cabins, moved here from the Graves Plantation near Covington, Ga. There's a barn, with corn cribs, coach house and the Necessary House (this was, of course, long before indoor plumbing).
The star of the layout is the pillared Dickey House. Built in the 1840s near Albany, Ga., it was occupied by descendants of the original owners until it was moved here in 1961. It is considered an excellent example of neoclassic architecture, with a simplicity of line that is pure Georgian.
Nearby is the cookhouse, separated from the main house for fear of fire. All food was cooked here and carried to the warming kitchen in the main house. And out back there is the garden, where corn and okra and even a few bolls of cotton grow.
"Plantation life in the Old South was an incredibly luxuriant amalgam of realities and dreams, of high human drama and low," says Shavin. "No wonder the plantation mystique is the stuff of which literature is wrought, and the source of so much meaning which still impacts on contemporary society and culture.
"To understand something of this fertile, heaving period in the drama of the Old South is to begin to grasp the richness of its heritage, its complexity and its challenge."
Not a bad outcome from a pleasant day spent at Stone Mountain.