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Stone Mountain Park to rename bridge for African American builder

Memorial association aims to add the covered bridge to national register.

One of metro Atlanta's most well-known parks - both famed and ridiculed for its massive Confederate memorial carving - announced on Tuesday that it will be naming a popular structure after its African American creator.

The board of directors of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association unanimously approved the naming the covered bridge connecting the main park to Indian Island after Washington W. King, who both designed and built the structure.

“We are always looking for ways to tell the stories and history of Georgia. The story of our covered bridge and of Washington W. King will now be more prominently told and shared with the over 3 million visitors to Stone Mountain Park,” association CEO Bill Stephens said.

According to the association, King was a businessman and member of a prominent family of master builders that spanned three generations.

The bridge originally sat in Athens, Georgia, when it was built for $2,470 in 1891, and remained there as a primary connection between the downtown area with the rural farm areas on the other side of the Oconee River.

It was disassembled, moved 60 miles and repaired in 1965 to its current spot. As one of only four of the remaining bridges created by King, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association also hopes to have the bridge added to the National Register of Historic Places.

While a massive park with many natural and exercise-related attractions, Stone Mountain is best-known for its massive Confederate Memorial Carving - the largest relief sculpture in the world. It depicts Confederate President Jefferson Davis and generals Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson.

The mountain was also the site of the re-emergence of the white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan, in 1915 - the same year the carving began.

For decades, those two aspects have been points of racial tension. However, the park has also recently pushed back against allowing some groups to use it as a symbol.

Citing incidents from previous years, the park recently denied use to a pro-Confederate alt-right group that planned to hold an event on Super Bowl Sunday. The denied group responded that the problems were caused by counter-protesters and an organizer said they intended to sue for the right to gather at the park.

The statement from the park renaming the bridge after its creator also nearly coincides with the celebration of another more well-known person of the same surname - civil rights luminary Martin Luther King Jr. - who had strong ties to Atlanta as well and actually mentioned the mountain in his famed "I Have A Dream" speech.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is Jan. 21.

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