Panola Mountain State Park Celebrates 50 Years

On the 50^th Anniversary, the Arabia Alliance looks at Panola Mountain’s fascinating but little known history. 

Who knew 50 could look this good? On July 24, Panola Mountain State Park (PMSP) celebrated its 50^th anniversary. Half a century ago, PMSP became Georgia’s first Conservation Park, protecting in perpetuity this unique landscape and its incredible natural and historical resources.

“I’ve been at the park for just over 2 years and it’s been an amazing experience,” said PMSP Interpretive Ranger Veronica Healy. “I oversee programming for the park, and have been able to create new hikes and other recreational experiences in my time here.” For the big 5-0, PMSP is giving away free 50-year anniversary stickers for participating in guided hikes. 

Native Americans At The Mountain

While the State Park has only been around for five decades, Panola Mountain’s engrossing history stretches back centuries. Like Arabia and Stone Mountains, Panola is a monadnock (a solid rock mass) that began forming under the earth’s crust hundreds of millions of years ago. The most recent native people to inhabit the land that is now Panola Mountain State Park were the Muscogee. For centuries, these native people would’ve lived around Panola Mountain, using the nearby South River as a source of food, trade and transit. In 1821, the Muscogee were essentially coerced into selling their land between the Flint and Ocmulgee Rivers, which would have included Panola, to the US Government. Then, in 1825, the second Treaty of Indian Springs, signed by Chief William McIntosh, illegally ceded all Lower Creek Land in Georgia. What McIntosh did was treasonous within Muskogee tradition and was executed by his own people for it. Just a few years later, nearly all of Georgia’s indigenous population was forcibly removed and ethnically cleansed from their ancestral lands in what would become known as the Trail of Tears. This ethnic cleansing broke all treaties that had been signed with Georgia’s indigenous people up to that point.

Even before indigenous people were forcibly removed, Georgia began to divide their land into plots to sell in land lotteries to European settlers. These old land lottery maps contain important information about the landscape including prominent trees, rivers, and streams. Incredibly, what was left off the map was Panola Mountain.

A Rocky History

In 1821 Britton Allums was awarded plot 227, the plot that Panola Mountain sits on. He only had the land for three months before selling it to Aaron Parker, a neighboring plot owner. “We, at the park, like to imagine that Allums was probably very excited about his cheaply acquired plot of land, only to discover that 100 acres of his 200 acre plot was unfarmable because it was taken up by Panola Mountain,” Healy said. “The Parkers, who’s home is still standing on the other side of the park, would’ve cleared the land and planted cotton. The Parker House is considered to be the oldest in Rockdale County, built circa 1830 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. We also know from Aaron Parker’s will and census records, that they would have had as many as 22 enslaved individuals working on the land.”

Slavery would’ve continued unabated around Panola Mountain and throughout Georgia until Sherman’s March to the Sea in the fall of 1864 when many enslaved folks self-emancipated by fleeing to the Union Army.

Over the years, the land would be passed down and sold to relatives of the Parkers and other individuals serving as farmland and pastures. For decades, areas around the mountain were also utilized for illegal moonshining operations. Panola’s remoteness and location, straddling three counties (and ergo three different law enforcement jurisdictions), made it a desirable site for moonshiners throughout the 19^th and 20^th Centuries.

Protecting Panola

In the 1930s, a man named John Yarborough purchased Panola Mountain and the surrounding 400 acres as an investment piece for leisure. He and his family and friends would travel from Atlanta and use the area as a vacation and picnic spot. The creek was dammed to form a small lake and several cabins and other structures were built around the lake. “After John Yarborough’s death in the mid 1960s, remaining family members wanted to ensure the land was passed down to a conservation organization that would protect the mountain,” said Healy. The land was first sold to the Georgia Conservancy in 1967. In 1971, the state bought Panola Mountain after Governor Jimmy Carter established the Heritage Trust, identifying several places, including Panola, as needing protection. On July 24th, 1974, Panola Mountain was dedicated as Georgia’s First Conservation Park.

Since then, PMSP has done incredible work protecting and preserving Panola Mountain. That includes offering guided hikes up the mountain (get your 50th anniversary sticker while they last!), hosting fun events like Junior Ranger Day, as well as offering a host of recreational amenities like biking, kayaking and even tree-climbing and archery. Perhaps most fruitful has been a continuing partnership with Birds Georgia (formerly Georgia Audubon) to restore land around PMSP, including what used to be an old golf course! Today, Birds Georgia is working to restore another 50 acres of woodlands and grasslands around Panola, plus 10 acres near Lyon Farm about a mile north of the mountain.

“Birds Georgia has worked diligently on removing invasive species and non-native grasses and planting native species in their place,” said Healy. “This project has so far been very successful, and provides important habitat for birds and other pollinators as we’ve seen with the recent Butterfly Count that was completed in the Heritage Area on August 3. Out of the 53 species observed, many of those came from Birds Georgia’s restored meadows.”

Here’s to another 50 years at Panola Mountain!