Field Notes

The leaves have fallen, temperatures are dropping and winter is rolling in once again at Arabia and Panola Mountains. The unrelenting heat on the rock is finally gone and the […]

The KKK was reborn on Stone Mountain in 1915 and Klan rallies continued in the town until the late ’70s.  DeKalb County Park Ranger Horace O’Kelly still remembers the annual […]

Since the Arabia Alliance hosted a Celebration back in August, there’s been demand for public tours of DeKalb’s only extant plantation home. This month, those tours start. Beginning November 15th, […]

There are two-dozen cemeteries located in or near Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area. Some go back to the Antebellum period, some are still maintained, and others we know surprisingly little […]

As we near Halloween, large, golden-yellow-and-black Joro spiders have returned to hang out (literally) and provide a spooky vibe. But why are there suddenly so many and do they even […]

Last September, Hurricane Helene devastated large swathes of the South, and the South River Water Trail was hit especially hard. A year later, we take a look at the recovery […]

On August 14, several years after a delay caused by COVID, more than 130 visitors attended the Arabia Alliance’s celebration of its most ambitious restoration project to-date: the stabilization of […]

Born on the Fourth of July in 1923, Roy Goddard’s life accomplishments include a seventy-plus-year marriage and serving as a paratrooper during WWII. The Fourth of July isn’t just the […]

Before it was a declared a State Park in 1974, Panola was privately owned by John Yarbrough, a local motor man who fell in love with the mountain.  It’s hard […]

Rock quarrying seems to not have been the only source of explosions at Arabia Mountain… Many sites around the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area have been used for more than […]

The illusive red succulent returns this spring with its white flowery bloom. What do we know about it and why is it so rare? Each spring in the Heritage Area, […]

Check out this photo Field Note by 2 James Madison University students who spent the week of March 16, 2025 volunteering at the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area. Spring break […]