Through the process of cryptobiosis, the tiny shrimp eggs (or cysts) can remain dormant for years in the dried out depressions, awaiting favorable conditions.

The rare Georgia oak was first discovered at the summit, and several specimens can easily be found along the walk-up trail and in the woods around the base of the mountain.

In the fall, the Confederate yellow daisy (Helianthus porteri) flowers appear on the mountain, growing in rock crevices and in the large wooded areas.

[21] She chose the sculptor Gutzon Borglum for the project and invited him to visit the mountain (although, despite his Ku Klux Klan involvement,[19]: 79  she "would not shake his hand—he was, after all, a Yankee").

[19]: 58–59  She met him at the Atlanta train station, took him to her family's summer home, Mont Rest, at the foot of the mountain, and introduced him to Samuel Venable,.

[19]: 59–60 Venable deeded the north face of the mountain to the UDC in 1916, on the condition that it complete a sizable Civil War monument in 12 years.

He was warned of the arrest and narrowly escaped to North Carolina, whose governor, Angus McLean, refused to extradite him,[19]: 89  though he could not return to Georgia.

[24] In response to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling and the birth of the civil rights movement, in 1958, at the urging of segregationist Governor Marvin Griffin,[6]: 21  the Georgia legislature approved a measure to purchase Stone Mountain at a price of $1,125,000.

The slaves were called "hands" or "workers", and black actress Butterfly McQueen (from Gone with the Wind) was hired to guide and inform visitors.

Loewen further alleges that on November 25 of the same year, Thanksgiving Day, a small group, including fifteen robed and hooded "charter members" of the new organization, met at the summit of Stone Mountain to create a new iteration of the Klan.

[36] He owned land at the base of the mountain that he had inherited from his ancestors, and in October 1923 he granted the Klan an easement with perpetual right to hold celebrations as they desired.

[39] The police negotiated a truce with the local Klan Grand Dragon, under which the Klansmen would refrain from further violence, but 20 of their number would be allowed to climb the mountain for a "religious ceremony", and the cross-burning was substituted with the lighting of a flare.

She suggested in a letter to the first sculptor, Gutzon Borglum: I feel it is due to the Klan[,] which saved us from Negro dominations [sic] and carpetbag rule, that it be immortalized on Stone Mountain.

Of the $250,000 (~$3.46 million in 2023) raised, part came from the federal government, which in 1925 issued commemorative fifty-cent coins with the soldiers Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on them.

[44] When the state completed the purchase in 1960, it condemned the property to void Venable's agreement to allow the Klan perpetual right to hold meetings on the premises.

After the killings at Emanuel Church in Charleston, it finally crystallized for me that these monuments encourage violence and validate oppression.In July 2015, the Atlanta NAACP proposed removing the Confederate carving from Stone Mountain Park.

[51][52][53] Georgia State Representative and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams called for the removal, by sandblasting, of Stone Mountain's carving.

[58] Known as the Not Fucking Around Coalition (NFAC), it was a protest against both overt and systemic racism, calling out white supremacists, with the location being chosen in part due to its history as the place where the Ku Klux Klan was re-formed.

[59] On August 15, 2020, the park administration temporarily closed its gates in reaction to a gathering of white nationalists planned there, and the city's public buses were suspended for the day.

Nevertheless, a fight broke out downtown between groups of white supremacists, Black Lives Matter counter-protestors, and people who wish to keep Confederate monuments in place,[60] though no injuries were reported.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the wall had disappeared, the rocks having been taken away by early visitors as souvenirs, rolled down the rockface, or removed by the commercial quarrying operation.

Visitors to the mountain would travel to the area by rail and road, and then walk up the 1.1-mile (1.8 km) mountaintop trail to the top, where Cloud also had a restaurant and club.

Over the years, Stone Mountain granite was used in many buildings and structures, including the locks of the Panama Canal, the steps to the East Wing of the United States Capitol and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

[69] Around dusk on September 16, 2003, in clear weather, a small airplane circled the mountain five times, crashed headlong into the south side, and burst into flames.

A witness testifying at the NTSB investigation stated that the pilot, a 69-year-old accountant, had threatened on multiple occasions to commit suicide by flying into the mountain.

The official NTSB accident report lists the probable cause as "The pilot's intentional flight into the ground for the purpose of suicide while impaired by alcohol.

In 2018, Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation decided to end their contract early after only 20 years due to record losses in 2017 and 2018, citing decreased revenues and "protests and division" fueled by the park's ubiquitous Confederate imagery as factors.

Atlanta architect James Means, investor Christie Bell Kennedy, and antiques dealer Kenneth Garcia chose, moved, arranged, altered, and decorated the buildings between 1960 and 1963.

[82] Crossroads is a recreation of an 1872 Southern town with several attractions that include a modern 4-D movie theater, an adventure mini-golf course and a duck-tour ride.

The duck boats have been replaced by the Rockin' Land and Lake Tour in 2019 due to several deaths in other locations caused by duck-boat accidents.