“This singular edifice, resembling somewhat a lighthouse, is an octagonal pyramid built entirely of wood. It stands upon the rock with no fastening but its own gravity. It was built nearly three years ago at a cost of $5,000. The projector and proprietor is Mr. Aaron Cloud of McDonough, and the work is commonly called Cloud’s Tower. “In the lower part is a hall one hundred feet square fitted up for the accommodation of parties. “We ascended by nearly 300 steps. The eyes rest upon a continuity of forest. The plantations and settlements appear small amid the sea of foliage. By the aid of good telescopes we distinguished five county towns. Among the towns I located was Terminus, a few straggling huts beyond Decatur.” While the 150-foot-square plat cost $100, another old deed shows that Cloud paid Johnson only $260 for 101½ acres of good forest land at the foot of the mountain. Another enterprising showman operated sometime in the Roaring Forties. His name has been lost, but some of the work he did can still be seen. He cut a trail for 250 feet, high up along the steep face extending out from the Buzzard’s Roost, installed an iron railing, and charged anyone who had the courage for such an adventure twenty-five cents to walk gingerly out to the end and back. [Illustration: These boulders guard the approach to Buzzard’s Roost, a grove of gnarled pines near the top. Stone Mountain’s only airplane crash occurred in this area.] [Illustration: Broken ledges and scattered blocks of stone show where granite was quarried.] [Illustration: A coach was left when the Stone Mountain railway was abandoned.] In one respect the fellow was a hundred years ahead of his time. He solved the traffic problem completely. Since only one person could go out at a time, there was never a jam or collision. But ambition was his undoing. While extending his trail still farther he blew himself into oblivion with a premature explosion of blasting powder. Correspondent Richards especially mentioned Terminus as one of the places he could see through Cloud’s telescope because the magic new town was very much in the news. In 1842 engineers had just completed a survey to establish the northernmost route a railroad could be built from Augusta, the head of navigation on the Savannah River, around the Blue Ridge Mountains and on to Chattanooga, a growing steamboat town on the Tennessee. Terminus had been renamed Marthasville and then Atlanta by the time the first train came over the line in 1845. Most of the town’s leading citizens were waiting at Stone Mountain to board it for a triumphal ride into their new city.