Covered Bridge & Quarry

The Stone Mountain Covered Bridge, also known as College Ave Bridge or Effie's Bridge, was built in 1891 over the Oconee River. It is 20 feet high and 151 feet long. In 1965 it was bought for $1 and moved to Stone Mountain Park from Athens, Georgia. It now give access to Indian Island Picnic Grounds and a hiking trail on Stone Mountain Lake.

The trail through the woods along the lake offered a nice cool hike to admire the beauty of the park...

At one point we could see the yurts at the Stone Mountain Park Campground. The largest campground in Georgia.

It also offered a nice place to take a rest in the sun... :)

Back at the picnic grounds, one tree was letting us know that Fall was approaching...

The quarry exhibit was very well done and we learned a lot about how the granite from Stone Mountain was removed and used...

Granite was quarried from here from the 1850s to the 1970s. Holes were drilled into the rock to place the iron wedges to split the rock apart. Before that wooden wedges were placed into the cracks and water was poured in to expand the wood and split the rock.

In all 7,645,700 cubic feet of granite was removed from the mountain. That is enough to place 1-foot paving stones from the North Pole to the South Pole, 12,444 miles!

The stone was sent to 40 states and 4 countries around the world. It was even used in the Panama Canal and Fergus Falls' courthouse. :)

 

 This was part of the original railroad spur built in 1869 to connect to the Georgia Railroad to move both stone and workers. The spur around the mountain operated until 1942, when the rails were pulled up to be used for the war effort.