STONE MOUNTAIN HISTORICAL TRAIL  

DESIGNATED A NATIONAL RECREATION TRAIL IN AUGUST, 1971
Approved By Boy Scouts Of America As A Historical Trail

Brochure in PDF format

Cherokee Trail Hike Information

·  The trail is approximately 8 miles in length and requires 4 or 5 hours to complete the hike.

·  Scouts must be in uniform. Tee shirts are acceptable in the summer.

·  The hike must be completed in one day.

·  Two adults should accompany each group of  ten youth hikers.

·  All hikers must visit Confederate Hall, watching the movie in the theater, “The Battle For Georgia” and touring the Education Center Exhibit Gallery to complete the requirements for earning the Stone Mountain Historical Trail Patch or Medal.

·  Hiking groups other than Scouts are invited to walk the trail as well.

·  Patch and Medal Trail Awards may be purchased after walking the trail and completing the Trail Awards Application Form. This is optional.

·  Please do not mark on or deface park property while hiking.

·  Hikers are asked to carry out all trash and deposit in trash receptacles.

·  Camping for groups is available in the Youth Camping Areas (Tents are required. Water and toilets are available).

                                                                                                           Map of the Trail 

Hiking The Historical Trail         

The hike starts at Confederate Hall, near the west gate of the park.   Obtain plastic bags inside the building from park personnel at the information counter for trash pickup while hiking. The following paragraph numbers are keyed to the topographical map.

1.  Start the hike from Confederate Hall.
2.  Hike to the top of the mountain using the walkup Trail.
3.  Take time at the top to rest and view the countryside.
4.  Return down the mountain by the same trail - WATCH FOR CROSS TRAIL MARKED BY WHITE BLAZES ON THE FLAT ROCK AND TREES - turn left at the cross trail. This is the beginning of Stone Mountain Historical Trail. It is approximately 500 yards up the mountain from the Flag Terrace.
5.  Cross the R. R. tracks and walk approximately 100 feet – WATCH FOR DIRECTION CHANGE - trail turns sharply to the left.
6.  Cross Robert E. Lee Blvd. in the marked crossing adjacent to the playground and walk into the woods.
7.  Walk across the top of the dam and the spillway. Turn left 50 feet beyond the spillway.
8.  Cross the second spillway using the bridge and then cross the dam - WATCH FOR THE TRAIL TURNING T0 THE RIGHT AT THE END OF THE DAM.
9.  Follow the shoreline until reaching the Grist Mill. Walk the elevated plank way around the mill. At this point the trail follows the water flume to its beginning at a small mill pond, and then turns right and then left to arrive at Robert E. Lee Blvd. where there is a marked crossing.
 Optional: If you would like to learn about the old Stone Mountain granite quarries, turn left on the sidewalk after crossing the street and proceed about 100 yards to the entrance of the “Raising A Ledge” exhibit. After viewing the exhibit, go back to the point at which you crossed Robert E. Lee Blvd. and turn left, continuing the hike.
10. After crossing Robert E. Lee Blvd., go into the woods following an old dirt road.
11. Cross the R.R. tracks and walk through the Nature Area at the base of the mountain.
12. The trail exits the woods and proceeds across the lawn on a sidewalk. Turn left and cross the track at the crossing before the R.R. Station and then turn right on the sidewalk.
13. As the walkway starts curving to the left, watch straight ahead for the white blazes going up the hill through the natural area. Pick up the trail as it goes through the picnic area behind the R. R. Station.
14. The trail continues about a mile along the northern side of the mountain before turning left at a tee in the trail, and then goes up across the open rock. It soon meets the walkup Trail. This is the end of Stone Mountain Historical Trail. Turn right and return down the mountain using the walkup Trail arriving at Confederate Hall.

Other Requirements That Can Be Worked On 

During The Hike

Trail Awards Application

The Indians And Stone Mountain

In 1733, principally two major Indian groups, the Cherokees in the north and the Creek confederacy in the south populated present-day Georgia and Alabama. The Creeks and Cherokees were very different and attempted to maintain a fairly well defined boundary between their territories. Stone Mountain was within the boundaries designated as Creek territory.

Along the border of the Creek and Cherokee tribes ran an important trail called by the Cherokees "Ita-wa", which the English traders corrupted into "Hightower". This trail was used by English traders from Carolina as far back as the early 1700s, and later became the boundary between DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties. Another major trail, the Sandtown Trail, ran east and west and crossed the Hightower trail. Stone Mountain was a prominent landmark near the intersection of these two trails, and was a natural meeting place for the Indians. From the mountain, the Hightower Trail went by High Shoals on the Appalachee River in the direction of Augusta.

In a "Narrative of Military Actions", Colonel Marinus Willet of New York, who was a personal friend of President George Washington, describes a most interesting trip that he made on June 9, 1790, up what is now Stone Mountain. He says, "June 9, at 9 o'clock a.m. arrived at Stoney Mountain about eight miles from where we encamped. Here we found the Coweta and Curatos (two groups within the Creek confederacy) to the number of eleven waiting for us; lay by until 3 o'clock p.m. and then proceeded 8 miles and encamped by a large Creek of the Waters of Ocmulgee...While I was at Stoney Mountain I ascended the summit...Many strange tales are told by the Indians of this Mountain...." Willet was sent by President Washington to meet with the Creeks to try to work out a treaty after a failed attempt by a group Washington sent earlier.

Col. Willett was apparently successful in his mission. President Washington convinced Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray to travel to New York, then the United States Capitol, to settle claims. On August 7, 1790, the area between the Oconee and Ogeechee rivers was formally ceded to Georgia in the Treaty of New York. The treaty guaranteed all lands west of the Oconee River (including Stone Mountain) to the Indians. Chief McGilivray had met with his subordinate chiefs at Stone Mountain before going to meet with President Washington to make the treaty, but he never returned to the mountain for his people were angered over the treaty he made and elected another chief. Georgia settlers were also bitterly resentful of the disposition of their territory as agreed to by the federal government in the Treaty of New York.

By 1793, relations between Georgians and the Creek Indians had become so strained that open warfare was expected at any time. The Creeks, seeing the hostility between the state and federal government caused by the treaty, began aggressive plundering which threw the state into great agitation. President Washington, however, was much opposed to an Indian War, and many of the Creeks themselves were peaceable. As a result no general hostilities followed.

In the Treaty of Indian Springs in 1821, Stone Mountain was included in territory ceded to Georgia by Creek Chief William McIntosh. The area included in the treaty was divided into five tracts designated at that time as the counties of Dooly, Fayette, Henry, Houston and Monroe. Henry County, which consisted of 18 land districts, was later divided into several counties: Henry, Fulton, Rockdale, Clayton and DeKalb, where Stone Mountain is located.

Although the Creek Indians gave up Stone Mountain to the people of Georgia in the Treaty of 1821, they left a lasting legacy in the well-worn trail they used to climb the mountain. The trail, which is marked by a plaque placed on the mountain in 1922 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, is still used by visitors to the mountain.

History Of Stone Mountain

Stone Mountain formed 300 million years ago deep underground during the formation of the Appalachian Mountains. The shifting of the earth’s crust beneath the continents created heat and friction which melted a large amount of rock below the surface to liquid.  This magma slowly hardened to granite and remained hidden beneath the earth’s surface for millions of years. The mountain was eventually exposed as the miles of land on top of the dome wore away with time and weathering. The first humans to discover the mountain were the Native Americans. Archaeological sites reveal that the Paleo Indians made a home nearby 8,000-10,000 years ago.  The first Europeans to the mountain were English traders who came into the area in the late 17th century.

A British army officer receives credit for the first English language report of the mountain, published in London, England, in 1788. Historians speculate that the officer was in the Stone Mountain region to enlist Indians to attack the revolting colonists.  

Just two years later, in 1790, "Stone Mountain" was the rendezvous point for an army Colonel (sent by President George Washington) and the chiefs of the Creek Indian Nation. It was an "address" familiar to the Indians. President Washington requested that a Creek delegate accompany Colonel Marinus Willet to New York for a conference.

Alexander McGillivary was the Indian Representative.  The son of a Creek princess and a Scotch trader, McGillivary had been educated in colonial schools and had become Chief of the United Creek Nation, the Seminoles and the Chicamaugas. He signed a land treaty for the property he did not own and the Creeks refused to honor it.  So, Stone Mountain remained a Creek property for 20 years. And, in 1812, the Creeks, still angry about their lands, fought on the side of the British.

Descendants of settler John W. Beauchamp have added to the legends about Stone Mountain ownership. Their family traditions recall that he traded forty dollars and a pony for the mountain and that he then traded it to Andrew Johnson for a "muzzle-loading gun and twenty dollars."  

No Beauchamp bill of sale has ever been found, and a formal deed could hardly have been executed before 1822. That is the year the Georgia State Legislature prepared land grants dividing the mountain into seven land lots. It is believed these were awarded to veterans of the Revolutionary War or their heirs.

By 1825, English Settlers had acquired some of the land on and around the mountain.  They built an inn, about where Confederate Hall stands now, to serve travelers with the newly started stagecoach service.

Aaron Cloud built a second inn and bought from Johnson a 150 square foot lot on the mountain 's highest point. He built a wooden pyramid tower and charged visitors 50 cents to climb and get a higher view.

Tourists made special trips to "View Gibraltar" and the great gray mountain until the Civil War stopped pleasure travel. The small town at the base of the mountain had become "Stone Mountain" by this time; it suffered the same fate at the hands of Sherman's men as its neighbors, Decatur and Atlanta . . . most of the town went up in flames.

In 1958, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association was established by an Act of the Georgia State Legislature. Shortly thereafter, the Park became a true family recreational area with the addition of the various museums, attractions and memorials.

Geology

When you view Stone Mountain, the great, gray, granite giant, which looms just east of the Atlanta skyline, you see the world's largest mass of exposed granite.  

Granite, the earth's most common igneous rock, possibly comprises the "shell" that underlies our world. Geophysicists and geologists suspect this, since granite is known to support many hundreds of square miles of earth in various places over the globe.

But Stone Mountain granite ranks as a most uncommon rock.  The term "Stone Mountain granite" denotes a specific classification. It means a close grained rock, uniformly gray in color and dense in texture, consistent in its mixture of quartz, feldspar, and mica grains.

The size of the mountain base may never be accurately measured, but the exposed part-shaped like a gray whale covers 583 acres, or 25,000,000 square feet.

The mysterious mountain, unique among all mountains in the world, long has intrigued the world's geologists.  They speculate that the amazing rock was a hundred million years in the making. It had to have been forged by immense heat and pressure during the fantastic upheavals of earth's infancy.  Scientists believe it took another two hundred million years before steady erosion uncovered the Stone Mountain we see today.

The Encyclopedia Britannica calls Stone Mountain a "gray monadnock, shaped like a half parabola, 1,683 feet above sea level, covered with growths of mosses and lichens and various plants, including rare varieties." The mountain's height is 825 feet above the surrounding lake level.

A surveyor once figured the exposed mass at 7,532,750,950 cubic feet of solid granite.  Several million cubic feet have been quarried away, but the cuttings have been insignificant.  The stone adorns impressive buildings and public works in nearly every American state.  Stone Mountain granite lines the Panama Canal.  It was also used in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D. C., the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan, and the University of Havana, in Cuba, as well as numerous other capitol and post office buildings throughout the United States.

The mountain itself looks relatively smooth-surfaced. The visible rock, marvelously textured and subtly colored, is host to numerous mosses, lichens, and tiny rock plants.  The bald mountaintop, for centuries alternately pitted by weathering and smoothened by rains, presents fascinating topographical contrasts. For example, the clam shrimp, a variety of transparent, fresh water shrimp have been found in rainwater pools on the mountaintop. Naturalists believe the shrimp have a very short life cycle, possibly only a few days, and survive from season to season because they hide their minute eggs in the mountain-top sand until sun, warmth and water cause more shrimp to hatch.

Stone Mountain's soil accommodates an enormous variety of native flora too, some indigenous only to that place. Indeed, the range of flora, particularly trees and wild flowers, seems nearly as remarkable as Stone Mountain itself.

Confederate Memorials      

Amid an impressive number of displays and restorations revelatory of life in the old South, there are three important Stone Mountain Park features devoted to the Confederacy and to the Civil War in Georgia.

Each of the Stone Mountain Civil War displays is unique, historically accurate, and visually as well as intellectually exciting.

First, just a short walk up the mountain, is the Confederate Flag Terrace. situated on a gentle slope. It presents a stirring approach to the footpath which leads to the top of Stone Mountain the United Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated this flag terrace to the memory of those soldiers who fought and died that Southern culture and tradition might live.

The second stop in the Civil War attractions is Memorial Hall, a spacious stone building which contains the fine Stone Mountain Civil War Museum.

Items of warfare uniforms and relics of battles a century past, all of unusual value are displayed here. Civil War experts from all parts of America have admired the high quality and undisputed authenticity of the collection.

The terrace in back of Memorial Hall offers a spectacular view of the third feature of the Civil War attractions-the world-famous Stone Mountain Memorial carving.

Memorial Carving

One of the most extraordinary projects ever conceived and attempted by man continues to amaze visitors who come from every part of the world to Georgia's Stone Mountain Park. About 20,000,000 people have viewed the largest sculptured art in the world . . the Memorial Carving.

The Stone Mountain carving is, first of all a memorial to the Confederacy. The idea was conceived and presented to the public early in this century by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. So enthusiastic was the public response that in 1915 the UDC commissioned Gutzon Borglum to begin a memorial at Stone Mountain. Today's carving bears no resemblance to Borglum's original intent. For he proposed to carve an army on horseback and on foot, which would encircle the mighty rocks! Despite that noteworthy effort, major disagreements soon arose between the artist and his sponsors and work was stopped. Shortly thereafter, Borglum's unfinished work had to be blasted off the mountain to make way for a new carving.

In 1925, Augustus Lukeman was commissioned to begin his conception of a new design for a memorial carving on the mountain. He suggested a smaller, symbolic design which included the figures of Jefferson Davis, Generals Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson, all on horseback.

Workmen laden with cumbersome tools each lay crawled, climbed and scrambled to incredibly precarious perches high above the earth , where they drilled the dense granite with tedious techniques handed down from the Biblical times.

Early in 1928 the sponsoring body, now called the Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association had the opportunity to view Lukeman 's new design. By summer of that year the head of General Lee was complete and the face of Davis had been carved; but the funds had run out. Again all work stopped.

The twice-begun project was to remain untouched for 35 years. In 1958, the Georgia General Assembly created the Stone Mountain Memorial Association and empowered it to sell revenue bonds for the purpose of purchasing the mountain, and developing it with 3 000 acres of surrounding land into a singular tribute to the South.

Walker Hancock of Gloucester Massachusetts, one of America's foremost sculptors, was named consultant for completion of the work. Lukeman had been forced to halt three decades earlier. Mr. Hancock found the Lukeman models intact and workable; although certain modifications were to be made to comply with Mr. Hancock's study of the carving and the mountain.

On July 4, 1964, work resumed on the vast carving , A modern method of store carving was used . . . thermo-jet torches, which actually are miniature jet engines. utilizing a 3,500 degree Fahrenheit flame which escapes with a muzzle velocity of about 2,800 feet-per-second. They burn a mixture of kerosene and oxygen; and roar with the sound of a jet airliner.

For over six years the visitors could hear the distinctive whine of the torches eight to ten hours a day, six days a week. The workmen labored through all kinds of weather, ignoring high winds summer sun and drenching rains which pelt the massive rock and surround it with masts. They even worked in snow, but when the mountain became ice-coated they dared not proceed. Their fiery tools could loosen ice masses capable of knocking the men from their scaffold.

The men moved about on the scaffolding, climbed up and down 40-foot ladders suspended 36 stories above the ground, and even walked out on completed portions of the work. The carved areas, actually as broad as perches, are much larger than they appear to observers below. Workers could recline easily on a horse’s ear, or even stand inside an equine mouth to escape a sudden rain.

Few viewers realize the great carving's actual size. Almost none can guess that a 36-story elevator took the workmen to their scaffolding, or that the overall rough-out area in which the carving is formed is the size of a foot-ball field.

If you could see the carving as the workmen completed one specific area you would admire a gray polished miracle of almost incredible perfection. Jet torches sealed the stone 's surface with a satiny finish gleaming with millions of tiny particles of mica. The carved surface was then roughed by a 4-point carbide tool which brought out the whiteness in the stone.

They knew their project was unique. They could guess its effect on the minds of countless millions who will come to see the carving in the time yet undreamed of. Just as ancient artisans must have speculated on today's evaluation of the Sphinx or the pyramids, these men wondered about unborn generations that may be moved by their present work.

While modern jet torches sliced into the prehistoric granite rock. That really is only half of the story. Perhaps even more fascinating is the way in which the depth of each cut was calculated , by means of plumb lines and points, using ageless geometrical methods. Thus, my means of combined jet age and ancient techniques, the work was completed. Never before has there been a carving of this scope, nor will there be another like it. For Stone Mountain is the world's largest deposit of solid, almost flawless granite. The stone's uniformity of texture is dazzling, its pale gray critter superb.

Probably the only work of sculptural art which might be compared to the Stone Mountain project is a huge figure of Buddha carved by the Chinese in China. It stands 196 feet high . . . taller than the Stone Mountain Figures, but much narrower in width.

Thus the Stone Mountain carving which emerges from the face of the unique mountain surely must occupy a singular place within the annals of history and art.  Vice President Spiro T. Agnew came to the mountain to dedicate the historic works in May of 1970. The giant memorial now belongs to the centuries.