Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 - 27, 2017
lifestyle
PAGE 5B
The long and storied history of how Stone Mountain’s carving came to be
by Bill Crane
Editor’s Note: As debate intensifies
about what, if anything, should be done
about the carving on Stone Mountain that
memorializes Confederate leaders, we share
this history of the land on which it sits and
how the carving came about.
Arguably one of the modern wonders of the
world, is the massive granite out-cropping
that we now refer to as Stone Mountain.
Long called Rock Mountain and other
names by Cherokee, Creek and other Native
American tribes.
When Georgia settlers encroached
Creek territory around the mountain in 1813,
President James Monroe dispatched U.S.
troops led by Andrew Jackson to relocate
the pioneers squatting on Indian territory.
Settlers who did not heed Jackson’s verbal
warnings and written notice to vacate were
typically burned out of their farms and
homesteads.
The mountain and its surrounding
acreage were originally part of Henry
County until 1822, when DeKalb County
was created, both counties named for
Revolutionary War heroes, Patrick Henry
and Baron von DeKalb respectively. Fulton
would be later cut out of DeKalb and the
massive park now straddles and in some
places forms the border between DeKalb
and Gwinnett counties. Approaching the
Civil War years, DeKalb County supported
maintaining the Union, and sent Stone
Mountain attorney George K. Smith
to the state convention considering
secession. Smith twice voted against leaving
the Union, but when the vote went statewide
in favor of secession, by a vote of 166 to
130, the entire state pulled behind the war
effort.
As the most important railroad in the
state at that time was the Georgia Railroad,
connecting Atlanta to the state capitol in
Milledgeville, as well as Athens and Augusta,
there were numerous battles between
Sherman’s Union troops and Confederate
forces, as Sherman attempted to sever the
railroad lines between Stone Mountain and
Decatur. After Atlanta fell, the rail line was
destroyed and the railroad ties and timber
burned.
Post-war, the mountain was primarily
known for the granite quarried on the
mountain’s southern side. Stone Mountain
granite became very desirable as building
stone and was used in the construction of
hundreds of courthouses, post offices as
well asthe east wing of the U.S. Capitol
building, the vaults of the U.S. Treasury, the
Federal Reserve’s gold depository at Fort
Knox and the locks of the Panama Canal.
This valuable rock attracted the formation
of the Southern Granite Company, which
included among its major shareholders
and organizers in 1886, brothers William
and Samuel Venable. The new company’s
holdings included Stone Mountain. By 1893,
the Venable granite empire would own most
of Lithonia and eastern DeKalb County, and
a 1901 brochure published by the Venables
billed Stone Mountain as the “largest deposit
of merchantable granite in the world.”
Though the Venables by day were pillars
of society and the business community, by
night brother Sam was getting between the
sheets, in the reformation of the Klu Klux
Klan atop Stone Mountain in a rally on Nov.
25, 1915.
The Klan initially presented itself more
like an ultra-patriotic version of the Masons
or the Shriners, as there were visible
connections to the Democratic Party of that
day, and also plenty of hate to go around.
The Klan had harsh words for the Catholic
church, Jewish and Irish immigrants,
Blacks and served as a major proponent of
Prohibition.
The younger Venable granted the Klan
a 40-year easement to hold rallies atop the
mountain in 1923, but it is urban legend
that the Klan owned Stone Mountain as
well as the Klan began the efforts to create
the memorial carving. William Terrell, an
Atlanta attorney and son of a Confederate
veteran, suggested the notion in a guest
editorial in The Atlanta Constitution in 1914
(a year prior to the Klan’s re-birth).
Helen Plane, an 85-year old
Confederate widow who was honorary
life president of the Georgia Chapter of
the United Daughters of the Confederacy
(UDC), contacted Sam Venable on behalf of
the UDC seeking his interest and permission
to create a memorial and monument at
Stone Mountain.
The Stone Mountain Memorial
Association selected sculptor John
Borglum to design, engineer and complete
the carving. Borglum’s original design called
for five groups of figures, each representing
an aspect of the Confederate forces,
surrounding a central group of generals
Lee, ‘Stonewall’ Jackson and Confederate
President Jefferson Davis. All figures in
the original design, estimated at 700-1,000,
would be facing east to greet the dawn of
a new day. Borglum estimated the work to
take eight years and a budget comparable
to the Lincoln Memorial, then also under
construction.
Under pressure from Venable, Borglum
would later join the Klan himself. Although
Borglum was a Yankee, he moved his family
from Connecticut and lived in Avondale
Estates while working on the project. He
was fired from the project due to a lack
of progress in 1925. He relocated west
and eventually became the sculptor and
project manager for the carvings on Mount
Rushmore.
Though Klan members were among the
executive committee and original SMMA
board of directors, financial contributions
toward financing the carving also came
from Rotarians, Freemasons and
numerous Jewish and Catholic groups. A
commemorative 50 cent piece was minted
in March 1924, under the administration
of President Calvin Coolidge, with sale
proceeds intended to fund completion of the
project.
The project would sputter along
throughout the Great Depression and World
War II eras. After being championed by
Atlanta’s progressive Democratic mayor
William B. Hartsfield in 1945, the Georgia
Legislature authorized the issuance of $5
million in revenue bonds to reactivate the
Stone Mountain Memorial Association and
move forward with the project.
In 1949, Gov. Herman Talmadge worked
with DeKalb commissioner Scott Candler
to renew an option with the Venable family
for five more years, to keep the mountain
from reverting back to the ownership of the
Venable family. In 1955, Gov. Marvin Griffin
worked with civic leader and banker Mills
B. Lane of C&S Bank to secure acreage at
the base of the mountain for a state park,
as well as the eventual completion of the
carving.
In 1958, the state assembled 2,500 acres
around the park and mountain, including
400 acres donated by DeKalb County and
nearly 1,600 acres owned by the Venables,
and the entirety was purchased for less
than $2 million. When the state acquired the
mountain and surrounding parkland in 1958,
it also ended the Klan excursions to the
mountain top.
In 1962, input was sought from the
public on nine potential designs for the
new carving and memorial to replace
Borglum’s uncompleted work. The winner,
with more than 90 percent of the vote was
Julian Harris’s model of Davis, Lee and
Jackson on horseback, with hands and hats
across their chests riding to the east. The
carving would take nearly another decade
to complete, and its completion became
a cause and passion of longtime Georgia
Secretary of State Ben Fortson.
The carving was unveiled May 9, 1970
with the Rev. William Holmes Borders
of Wheat Street Baptist Church giving
the invocation. Gov. Lester Maddox
and other state dignitaries were joined
by Vice-President Spiro Agnew. The
theme for the event was ‘Unity through
Sacrifice.” Additions over the decades since
include the reflecting pond at the base of the
carving, smaller Valor and Sacrifice parks
at the base of the Memorial Hall and lawn
facing the carving and monument.
The carving occupies three acres, among
more than now 4,000 acres of parkland. The
entire heritage area of the park, including
Memorial Hall, Confederate Hall and the
two smaller parks and greenspaces in
front of the monument comprise a small
fraction of the park’s many offerings. Annual
attendance at Stone Mountain Park is
estimated at 4,000,000, making it the state’s
most visited destination.
This summary relies heavily on the work
of David Freeman, author of Carved in
Stone - The History of Stone Mountain.
