The railroad had suddenly become so much more important than the stage line that New Gibraltar moved over beside the tracks. In 1847 the legislature granted the town a charter as Stone Mountain and also gave the granite knoll, which had been called Rock Mountain and Stony Mountain, the official name of Stone Mountain. That year a spur track was built from the depot out to a point between the two inns operated by Andrew Johnson and Aaron Cloud. Another historic event took place on that first train ride from Stone Mountain to Atlanta, in 1845. The local leaders discussed organizing an agricultural society to promote better farming and merchandising methods. The first meeting of the South Central Agricultural Society was held at the mountain in 1846, with 61 charter members. The following year the Society held a fair at Stone Mountain. A Savannah reporter, covering the event for his paper, wrote: “Wagons, carriages, carts and pedestrians are arriving every minute. Ladies form a very large proportion.” The correspondent’s concluding notation, that he slept in a room with twenty-eight other people, explains why the fair was held at Stone Mountain only two seasons. It was moved to more populous Atlanta and grew into the great Southeastern Fair, while the society evolved into the Georgia Department of Agriculture. The Civil War touched Stone Mountain to the extent that the flow of tourists stopped, and a detachment of Union cavalry swooped in and burned most of the town, sending up columns to join the smoke from Atlanta, Decatur and other unfortunate neighbors. Stone Mountain’s granite, being too heavy for long hauls by wagon, had no commercial value whatever until the coming of the railroad. The spur line built in 1847 surely hauled rock as well as tourists. The first official mention of the granite industry appears on a deed filed in 1863, when W. B. Wood and John J. Meador sold a parcel of land, but reserved quarrying rights. In the Reconstruction Period, when Southern industry was at its lowest ebb, the granite quarries flourished. Growing towns needed paving blocks and curb stones. Buildings destroyed in the war had to be replaced. William H. and Samuel H. Venable, as the Venable Brothers, expanded until they had acquired the entire mountain in 1887, estimating that altogether it cost them $48,000. The firm operated for seventy more years, extending the railroad line around to the east side, where the finest stone was found.