Arabia Alliance Celebrates Game-Changing Lyon Farm Preservation

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 Lyon Farm, DeKalb’s only plantation home.

Although Georgia might be famous for Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind (and the motion picture of the same name), plantation homes in Metro Atlanta and, more importantly, good historical interpretation of them are not so easy to come by. Until now, that is. Last week, the Arabia Alliance threw a big celebration for its ongoing preservation efforts at Lyon Farm, the only existing plantation home in DeKalb County, and the community really showed up. 

On August 14, from 9:30am-12pm, the staff of the Arabia Alliance threw “Celebrating Preservation, Conservation and Interpretation at Lyon Farm.” The Lyon Family is one of the oldest in DeKalb, having inhabited the land from around 1820 until 2007, when they relinquished the property to DeKalb, having sold it to the county in 2003 for the Pole Bridge Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant. Before the Civil War and Emancipation, the Lyon family enslaved 13 adults and children according to the 1850 slave census and 17 from the 1860 census. After Emancipation, most of these enslaved people took the surname Lyons (with an “s”) and became instrumental in the founding of Flat Rock, one of Georgia’s oldest continually inhabited Black communities.  

“History lives here in all of us, and last Thursday we witnessed it,” said the Arabia Alliance’s Executive Director Revonda Cosby. “This is the first time in my tenure here at the Arabia Alliance that we’ve had our two mayors, the CEO, a Congressman and county commissioners in the same place. And we saw the support come not just financially but also from the community and their interest to know more about this place. The excitement of the people who were engaged with us on that day really expressed that support.” 

Five years ago, the Arabia Alliance completed its preservation efforts at Lyon Farm. At the time, this was the largest historical preservation project in the nonprofit’s history, as well as its largest public-private partnership for such an effort, partnering with the DeKalb County Department of Watershed Management (DWM) to add historical interpretation, signs, and stabilize and preserve the farmhouse building as well as the original smokehouse, which was built around 1821 and is one of the oldest standing structures in DeKalb.

Then COVID struck, the world went into lockdown, and the Arabia Alliance never got to properly highlight its historic preservation efforts at Lyon Farm, the only historic plantation left in DeKalb. Until last Thursday, that is. On that day, more than 130 attendees from across Metro Atlanta congregated in front of the historic structure, including several descendants of the those who were enslaved at the plantation. Starting at 9am, DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, US Congressman Hank Johnson, DeKalb County Commissioners, Lithonia and Stonecrest Mayors, and staff from the Arabia Alliance and Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve all came together under a tent on the freshly mowed lawn in front of the historic farmhouse for an official commemoration of this game-changing preservation project. An initial celebration was hosted in May 2019, before the outside revitalization and installation of interpretive signage were finished. However, August 14 was the public’s first chance to celebrate the completed restoration and interpretation work. 

Speaking of, attendees enjoyed free sweet tea and biscuits with sorghum syrup (an alternative to honey or sugar cane that the Lyon family grew and processed on their land). After opening remarks from CEO Cochran-Johnson, Congressman Hank Johnson and Arabia Alliance staff, visitors were treated to a free historic tour of the grounds and historic structures that dot this rural landscape just north of the South River.

“The work [here] is not only about preserving walls and wood, it’s about telling a full truth,” said CEO Cochran-Johnson. “It is about including the stories of 17 enslaved individuals that were here in 1860 and their descendants who built thriving communities that we now know as Flat Rock and Lithonia. This is more than a historic preservation project. It is a commitment to truth. It is a commitment to history. And it is also a commitment to a legacy and a partnership for generations to come.”

Some of those Lyons descendants, such as Cathy and Carol Mabry, were sitting front row during CEO Cochran-Johnson’s speech when the CEO pledged $250,000 from the County to help elevate Lyon Farm and transform it into one of Atlanta’s top heritage sites. Following Cochran-Johnson’s lead, Super District 7 DeKalb County Commissioner LaDena Bolton further committed $50,000 to this effort. Although stabilized back in 2019, the inside of the historic structure looks very much like it did when the last Lyon family members lived there in the 2000s and is in need of revitalization.

In all, around 130 were present, including supporters, partners and affiliates of the Arabia Alliance such as Panola Mountain State Park, the DeKalb History Center, Birds Georgia (which has been doing habitat restoration work on the land), BIPOC Outdoor Collective, and more. “Watching all those people pull up [for the event], I was like, ‘Oh my god,'” said, said Brigette Jones, the Arabia Alliance’s Historian and Assistant Executive Director. “More than anything, we’re looking to amplify the interpretation and deepen how we present these stories. We intend to put personhood to individuals who went unnamed in this historical interpretation.”

Jones is referring to the Lyons family, the Black descendants of Hill Lyons and others who were born enslaved on Lyon Farm and went on to become community members in Flat Rock and Lithonia. As part of Phase 3 of the Lyon Farm Preservation, it’s the Arabia Alliance’s goal to uncover the family history of the Lyons, an interpretive gap at Lyon Farm where much of the White Lyon family history has been meticulously documented.

Celebrating Preservation, Conservation and Interpretation at Lyon Farm also served as a kick-off for new regular tours of the historic plantation site. In the future, and also part of Phase 3 interpretive expansion at Lyon Farm, the Arabia Alliance hopes to use ground penetrating radar to locate where the Lyon slave cabins used to stand and add that to the interpretation as well.

All that history is right there under our feet, out there in the community. It’s just simply a matter of uncovering it and telling that story. 

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To help the Arabia Alliance with this preservation mission and others, please consider donating here. Also, if you missed Celebrating Preservation, Conservation and Interpretation at Lyon Farm, then don’t fret. The Arabia Alliance will be hosting a follow-up celebration and tour soon!