Soaring 700 feet above the forest floor is a granite dome two miles long and a mile wide. Stone Mountain, 16 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia, was the ideal site for a memorial to General Robert E. Lee.

In 1915 the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) obtained a deed from the owners of the mountain, accepting their proviso that the work be completed by 1928. They hired sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who began cutting in 1923. After a dispute with the sponsors, Borglum abandoned the project to work on Mount Rushmore.

Although another sculptor, Augustus Lukeman, resumed the task in 1925, he was unable to finish by the 1928 deadline, and the original owners reclaimed the mountain, abruptly stopping the project. Only in 1958 did the Georgia state legislature create a memorial association to buy the mountain.

Sculptor Walter Kirtland Hancock resumed the work in 1963, completing it in 1970. Hancock's epic sculpture depicts General Robert E. Lee, Lieutenant General Thomas J.