

Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and their beloved horses - and was completed in 1972. Work began anew using an updated design - no Klansmen this time, just Robert E. The State of Georgia went through the process of condemning the property after buying it, thus eliminating the easement held by the KKK. In 1958, the State of Georgia purchased Stone Mountain with an eye toward reviving and completing the memorial, at a time that coincided with the Civil Rights Era.

Stone Mountain continued to be closely associated with the KKK, as Sam Venable granted the group an easement in 1923 giving them “perpetual right to hold celebrations as they desired.” The Confederate memorial, however, lay unfinished and dormant. This first attempt to build the monument flailed for 12 years, and ultimately ceased in 1928, having gone through two sculptors (the first being Gutzon Borglum, who went on to begin Mount Rushmore, and was also a Klansman) with only a completed carving of Lee’s head to show for it. The UDC started advocating for the creation of the monument at Stone Mountain in 1914 in 1915, the second iteration of the KKK was founded on top of Stone Mountain and in 1916, Sam Venable - one of the owners of Stone Mountain, as well as a Klansman - granted the UDC permission to begin creation of the Confederate memorial on the north face of the mountain. Lee heroically leading not only Confederate soldiers, but also Ku Klux Klansman. A charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Plane originally envisioned a memorial depicting Robert E. Which is why early-20th-century white supremacists decided to make this remarkable geological formation their own, and that - like so many ramifications of history - remains inescapable unto the present day.Īnd make no mistake: the originators of this memorial were white supremacists, and not just people “interested in Southern history.” The concept for the memorial carving was first conceived of by C. Capitol, among other things.Īs early as 1850, it was a popular outdoor destination for visitors from nearby Atlanta, and understandably so it’s a naturally striking and attractive place. Treasury, and the East Wing steps of the U.S. Stone Mountain was an important meeting place for the Creek Confederation and the Cherokees during the period of European encroachment into the region. Starting in the 1830s and for several decades thereafter, granite was quarried at Stone Mountain - granite which went on to build locks at the Panama Canal, vaults at the U.S.

The main thing that initially jumps out about Stone Mountain, though, is that it bears a gigantic bas-relief carving that serves as a memorial to the Confederate States of America.įor most of the 300-some-odd-million years this 825-foot hulking granite sentry of the Blue Ridge Mountains has brooded over its environs, it had nothing to do with the Confederacy at all. Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.Stone Mountain is a lot of things: a park with beautiful hiking trails and rare flora a lakeside mountain with lush picnicking spots, a scenic railroad, and an aerial tramway the place to see a popular and no doubt spectacular laser light show.Britannica Beyond We’ve created a new place where questions are at the center of learning.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.
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