Georgia's Stone Mountain

Chief carver Roy Faulkner at work on the Stone Mountain Memorial Carving, face of General Robert E. Lee.
by Willard Neal
$2.00
This is a view of Stone Mountain before the carving.
Every traveler, on first viewing Stone Mountain, has stood in awe at the foot of the looming monolith. Seasoned tourists and Georgia school children are affected just as pioneer explorers were. The towering rock is so impressive that each individual feels he is making the great discovery.
Questions arise. How did Stone Mountain come to be? How old is it, and how high? Exactly how large is this biggest carving in the world. How was it done? Who did it? Who first saw Stone Mountain? What effects has it had on the development of our country?
Thus, this book. It is dedicated to those who care enough to see and study the wonders of their country, and who, in their travels, have had the unexplainable and unexpected thrill of discovering Stone Mountain.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson ride forever on Stone Mountain.
Stone Mountain’s Confederate Memorial is the world’s largest piece of sculpture, cut into the side of the world’s biggest exposed mass of granite. The carving is 90 feet tall and 190 feet wide, stands eleven and a half feet out from the side of the mountain, and towers 400 feet above the ground in a frame that is 360 feet square, or three acres. Fifty-five years elapsed from the time of the original concept in 1915 until completion of the three figures in 1970. Not a blow of the hammer was struck for 36 years, from 1928 to 1964.
At Stone Mountain things have a way of coming out quite differently than planned.
History is a little hazy on who first envisioned a Confederate Memorial on Stone Mountain. Mrs. Helen Plane, charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was quoted in 1909 as thinking it would be a fine place for a monument. In 1912 John Temple Graves, editor of the New York American, after a visit back home wrote a rousing editorial for the Atlanta Georgian urging that the world’s greatest monument be carved on the world’s finest piece of stone.