Fort Mountain Ancient Stone Wall

The story

Along the crest of Fort Mountain—2,850 feet up in the Cohutta range—runs an 855-to-885-foot spine of unmortared stacked rock featuring 19 to 29 stone pits and a ruined gateway. Nobody actually knows who built it. When European settlers questioned local Native Americans about the wall in the 1800s, Cherokee lore attributed the structure to the 'moon-eyed people'—a legendary race of short, pale, blue-eyed nocturnal inhabitants who supposedly couldn't tolerate daylight and were driven off during a full moon.

If subterranean nocturnal dwellers aren't conspiratorial enough, alternative theories get even stranger. State historical markers erected in the 20th century popularized a theory that 12th-century Welsh prince Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd landed in Mobile Bay in 1170 and constructed stone fortifications while marching his followers north. Other claims point to Hernando de Soto’s Spanish conquistadors or Cherokee newlyweds setting up honeymoon shelters. Modern archaeologists lean toward Woodland-era Native Americans building it between 500 and 1500 CE as a ceremonial boundary or solar observatory, noting that the wall runs east-to-west and aligns with the winter solstice sunset.

Whatever its original purpose, the wall shares the summit with another notable piece of stonework: a four-story fire tower erected during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps on land donated by Atlanta businessman Ivan Allen Sr. Look closely at the tower's facade above one of the windows and you'll spot a heart-shaped stone carved by young mason Arnold Bailey for his sweetheart Margaret Reece. Between ancient mystery pits and 1930s mountain romance, the ridge holds its secrets in plain sight.