Fifty years ago today (April 18^th, 1972), Charles Davidson, Jr., the then-President of one of the largest granite products companies in the world, made a fateful decision: in order to prevent a large granite outcrop owned by the Davidson family from being developed by one of the company’s competitors, that property would be donated to DeKalb County to be preserved forever as a public greenspace. That 500+ acre rock outcrop now constitutes a centerpiece of what has become the nationally significant 2,500+ acre Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve, a focal point of the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area. Today, the DeKalb County government and the Arabia Mountain Heritage Area Alliance recognize and honor that donation — and the Davidson family – for its enduring impact on conservation and recreation in metro Atlanta. There will be an in-person, public ceremony recognizing and celebrating the 50^thanniversary of the donation later this year, coinciding with the autumn wild daisy bloom on Arabia Mountain. This 50^thanniversary year of the Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve’s creation coincides with the 200^th anniversary of DeKalb County.  

“I don’t think you can overstate the significance of that 1972 donation,” said Arabia Alliance co-founder Kelly Jordan. “This area could have been completely different, and this incredible landscape could have been lost. The more than 2,000 acres of additional greenspace preservation that you see and enjoy today took years of efforts by DeKalb County, the Arabia Alliance and members of the community, but the Davidson family’s landmark decision to donate Arabia Mountain to DeKalb County was the start of it all.”  

Many decades before, Lithonia had become a major hub for the granite industry, with local quarries sending stone off to construct projects such as the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and other monuments and buildings across America. Granite built the booming town of Lithonia – the name of which means “City of Stone” in Greek – and many of the buildings in the Lithonia National Register Historic District are made of local granite. In fact, DeKalb’s first Black public school building, the Bruce Street School, was granite-clad, with local stone stitched together to form the building’s exterior. 

Enter the Davidson family, whose granite products business in Lithonia would eventually lead to the protection of one of the largest granite outcrops in metro Atlanta. In 1888, John Keay “Jack” Davidson immigrated from Aberdeen, Scotland, looking for work in the U.S. granite industry. He settled in Lithonia where in 1895 he began the Davidson Granite Company. Three of his five sons (Norton, Charles and Keay, Jr.) and two of his grandsons (Charles, Jr. and Everett) would go on to direct the company and its affiliates after Jack’s retirement in 1940.