Hollis - Stone Mountain Park

Spanish explorer Juan Pardo may well have been the first nonNative American to see Stone Mountain. In 1567, he described it as a great gray egg lying half-buried on a vast plain. (Authors collection.)

Shortly after the Civil War, granite quarrying became a major industry at Stone Mountain. Chunks of the giant outcropping have been used in countless federal buildings and memorials from coast to coast. (Stone Mountain collection.)

The first tourism development at Stone Mountain occurred in 1838 when Aaron Cloud built a 165-foot observation tower at the summit. Clouds Tower, as it was known, was a popular spot for locals to visit. Unfortunately the wooden structure was not anchored to anything, and it blew down during a storm in 1849. (Stone Mountain collection.)

Once the federal highway system was established in the late 1920s, U.S. Highway 78 ran directly past the base of Stone Mountain. This would prove to be a great boon for bringing automobile tourism to the site but posed its own set of problems when the property was to be turned into a state park. (Stone Mountain collection.)

In 1915, as part of the Southern response to D. W. Griffiths pioneering film Birth of a Nation , the Ku Klux Klan was revived and used Stone Mountain as its sacred ground. When a monument to the heroes of the Confederacy was proposed to be carved into the side of the mountain, it resulted in the erroneousbut understandableimpression that the carving itself was a Klan project. (Stone Mountain collection.)

After eight years of trying to figure out just how he was going to accomplish a carving on the sheer side of a granite mountain, on June 18, 1923, sculptor Gutzon Borglum (left) accepted a ceremonial drill bit from Gov. Lee Trinkle of Virginia (right) in an elaborate ceremony. Since Gen. Robert E. Lee, a Virginia native, was the first figure scheduled to be carved, that state perhaps received more attention that day than Stone Mountains home state of Georgia. (Stone Mountain collection.)

This plaster model, now on display in Stone Mountains Memorial Hall, shows one of Borglums original concepts for his carving. Note that his version of Jefferson Davis sported a Santa Claus beard and was depicted looking at General Lee and gesturing with his right arm. (Stone Mountain collection.)

Since the carvers who were going to work on the sculpture had to have somewhere to stand, lumber was hauled to the top of the mountain by oxen and then lowered down the side to build a stairway and platform. (Stone Mountain collection.)

In these two photographs, Borglum is seen explaining one of his models to members of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association. At this point, he was still concentrating primarily on the three main figures, although some of the soldiers trailing them are roughed out here. The horse was Borglums own steed, which he used as the living model for Lees horse, Traveler. (Both Stone Mountain collection.)