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The carving was conceived by Mrs. C. Helen Plane, a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). The Venable Brothers, owners of the mountain, deeded the north face of the mountain to the UDC in 1916. The UDC was given 12 years to complete a sizable Civil War monument. Gutzon Borglum was commissioned to do the carving. Borglum abandoned the project in 1925 (and later went on to begin Mount Rushmore). American sculptor Augustus Lukeman continued until 1928, when further work stopped for thirty years. In 1958, at the urging of Governor Marvin Griffin, the Georgia legislature approved a measure to purchase Stone Mountain for $1,125,000. In 1963, Walker Hancock was selected to complete the carving, and work began in 1964. The carving was completed by Roy Faulkner, who later operated a museum (now closed) on nearby Memorial Drive commemorating the carving's history. The carving was considered complete[6] on March 3, 1972.

Carving and the Ku Klux Klan

The revival of the Ku Klux Klan was emboldened by the release of D. W. Griffith's Klan-glorifying film The Birth of a Nation,[7] and coincided with the August 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, who was convicted in the murder of Mary Phagan. On November 25 of the same year, a small group, including fifteen robed and hooded "charter members" of the new organization, met at Stone Mountain to create a new iteration of the Klan. They were led by William J. Simmons, and included two elderly members of the original Klan. As part of their ceremony, they burned a crude cross.[8]

Fundraising for the monument resumed in 1923, and in October of that year, Venable granted the Klan easement with perpetual right to hold celebrations as they desired.[9] The influence of the UDC continued, in support of Mrs. Plane's vision of a carving explicitly for the purpose of creating a Confederate memorial. The UDC established the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Association (SMCMA) for fundraising and on-site supervision of the project. Venable and Gutzon Borglum, who were both closely associated with the Klan, arranged to pack the SMCMA with Klan members.[10] The SMCMA, along with the United Daughters of the Confederacy continued fundraising efforts. Of the $250,000 raised, part came from the federal government, which in 1924 issued special fifty-cent coins with the soldiers Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on them, but would not allow the politician Jefferson Davis to be included.[11] When the state purchased the mountain in 1958, they had removed the Klan and voided Venable's agreement by condemning the properties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain#Confederate_Memorial