Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area marks 20 years with Stonecrest celebration

On Sunday, Oct. 11, the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area marked 20 years with a free afternoon at Vaughters' Farm Trailhead, 3366 Klondike Road in Stonecrest. The barn and meadow filled with barbecue, live blues and bluegrass, free ice cream and MOKIPOPs, guided hikes, AWARE Wildlife Center animal ambassadors, hayrides, partner activities, and a pop-up history exhibit inside the historic Vaughters' Barn.

That party site is itself a piece of DeKalb history: Vaughters' Barn and Meadow is the county's last remaining dairy-meadow landscape, once part of S.B. Vaughters' dairy operation, a leading regional farm. Revonda Cosby, executive director of the Arabia Mountain Heritage Area Alliance, put the anniversary in those terms. "Our National Heritage Area started because a small group of individuals saw the value of protecting public lands for the sole enjoyment of others," Cosby said. "Flash forward 20 years, we're still proud of protecting these places that tell America's story."

A granite ledger

The heritage area spans roughly 40,000 acres across parts of DeKalb, Rockdale, and Henry counties. Congress established it in 2006 through the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area Act, enacted Oct. 12, 2006, as Subtitle C of the National Heritage Areas Act of 2006.

For Lithonia, the designation is not abstract; it is the same rock the town was built from. Lithonia means "city of stone," and the town grew as a granite-quarry town after its founding in 1856. The railroad's arrival in the late 19th century let local stone ship regionally and nationally, and Lithonia granite — also called Tidal Grey — is prized for its durability, density, and distinctive gray swirl pattern. The Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve is a 2,550-acre former quarry landscape of granite outcrops, wetlands, lakes, streams, and hiking trails. The Arabia Mountain PATH, a paved multiuse trail of more than 33 miles, ties together Lithonia, the preserve, Panola Mountain, and the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. The exposed rock of Arabia and Panola mountains and smaller outcrops formed roughly 400 million years ago, and quarry scars, abandoned cuts, lakes, stone walls, and altered rock faces show natural and industrial history side by side.

That history runs through the county's civil-rights record as well. The Bruce Street School ruins preserve the remains of DeKalb's first public school for African American students, a granite building raised in 1938 by quarry workers after the community bought six acres and raised funds. The school closed in 1955, and its granite walls are the principal surviving remains. Recent stabilization of Lyon Farm in Stonecrest — DeKalb's only surviving plantation home — and the rescue of the Bruce Street School ruins are two of the hands-on projects that have held the landscape together.

A designation, not a guarantee

A National Heritage Area is not a national park or a federally owned unit. The National Park Service provides technical, planning, and financial assistance, while local partners do the day-to-day work of preservation, interpretation, recreation, and economic development. The Davidson family donated more than 500 acres around the mountain to DeKalb County in the 1970s, the foundation for what became the Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve. The Arabia Alliance was formed in 1998 by Becky Kelley, then DeKalb County Parks and Recreation director, and Kelly Jordan, a local developer, conservationist, and photojournalist, to advocate for the preserve and the land around it. Lithonia native and then-U.S. Sen. Max Cleland first suggested the region seek National Heritage Area status; Jordan led the multiyear planning effort.

The alliance says the work has meant preserving east metro Atlanta's natural, cultural, and historic resources despite the "growing encroachment of real estate development," and the National Park Service warned the landscape could be "changed forever" as residential and commercial growth increased without adequate planning. Because the land is not federally owned, the heritage area stays whole only through continuing work by local partners with National Park Service assistance.

The next gathering

The next chance to keep that work going is already set. A free Founders Coffee is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Panola Mountain State Park's Event Room, 2620 Highway 155 SW in Stockbridge, with coffee, tea, a light breakfast, a short history-video preview, and conversation with co-founders Becky Kelley and Kelly Jordan.

For Lithonia neighbors, the tie is direct: the trail and preserves sit in their backyard, their town was built from the same stone, and the next gathering to protect that landscape is on the calendar.