Chatsworth’s Mysterious Wall
Georgia > Northwest Georgia Mountains > Murray County > Chatsworth
Who built the ancient stone wall at Fort Mountain has been a mystery that archeologists, historians and visitors have been trying to solve for years.
There are numerous ways to spend the day at Fort Mountain State Park – hiking, biking and horseback riding to name a few. But certainly, a highlight of the park and the landmark from which it derives its name is the mysterious wall that sits at the highest point of Fort Mountain.
The ancient stone Wall at Fort Mountain has been the subject of much speculation for centuries. Measuring 875 feet in length, it ranges in height from two to seven feet, although it was probably considerably higher in the past. Remains of circular depressions made of various sized stones and measuring about 10 feet across, occur in the wall at about 30-foot intervals.
Archeologists and historians have been unable to solve the puzzle of who, if anyone, built the wall or why or when it was built. There are many theories. A favorite explanation is that Woodland Indians built the wall around CE 500. The east-west orientation of its end points would result in alignment at sunrise and sunset at the solar equinox in both spring and fall. The dramatic setting of the wall, offering expansive vistas to the east and west, would add to its religious significance. Ceremonial centers similar to this were built by the Woodland Indians at Old Stone Fort, Tennessee, and Rock Eagle Mound in Putnam County, Georgia. The Woodland Indians occupied the Southeast from several centuries BCE to about CE 900.
A less probable but more romantic theory attributes the Wall at Fort Mountain to a legendary Welsh prince named Madoc. He supposedly sailed into what is now Mobile, Alabama, around 1170 (300 hundred years before Columbus), then worked his way northward toward the Fort Mountain vicinity. Nothing else is known about Prince Madoc, except that his name is vaguely linked to several petroglyphs found in other parts of the Southeast.
Some geologists believe, and this may be the least romantic explanation of all, that the wall is the result of natural weathering of a generally horizontal stratum of a hard caprock of quartzites and conglameratites that produced the present ring of boulders.
In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a 38-foot stone observation tower at the mountain’s summit 520 feet north of the Wall. Its special feature is a heart-shaped stone, which lies concealed just above the east window.
Fort Mountain State Park’s 1,932 acres were donated to the Federal Government in 1929 by Ivan Allen, Sr., in order for the stone wall to be preserved, and for the public’s pleasure. In the 1940s, it was turned over to the state of Georgia.
Read more about Fort Mountain State Park, Native American History in Georgia, Chatsworth and Murray County, or find other activities in the Northwest Georgia Mountains Travel Region here at Brown’s Guides.