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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.