In 1979, a man who called himself R.C. Christian approached a granite company in Elberton, Georgia, with an unusual order. The result stood about 19 feet tall, weighed 237,746 pounds and carried ten guidelines for humanity in eight languages. It was dedicated in 1980, and as of July 6, 2022, it no longer exists.
“R.C. Christian” was a pseudonym, and the man’s real identity has never been established, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia. He claimed to represent a group of concerned Americans. Joe Fendley, who ran Elberton Granite Finishing Company, first suspected a hoax, Religion News Service reported. A local banker, Wyatt Martin, helped arrange the financing.
The finished Georgia Guidestones were unveiled on March 22, 1980. Four upright slabs surrounded a center stone and held up a capstone, according to the Encyclopedia. The main stones carried the guidelines in English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian. The capstone added four ancient languages: Babylonian cuneiform, classical Greek, Sanskrit and Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The messages ranged from the practical to the poetic. The first called for keeping humanity under 500,000,000 in balance with nature. The last urged readers not to be “a cancer on the earth” and to “leave room for nature.” The guidelines also touched on laws, courts and a shared world language, and NPR noted that the mix fueled conspiracy theories for decades.
The theories never slowed the foot traffic. The monument, nicknamed “American Stonehenge,” drew about 20,000 visitors a year, according to WSB-TV.
Then, at about 4 a.m. on Wednesday, July 6, 2022, unknown people set off an explosive that destroyed a large portion of the structure, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. NPR reported that one of the four main panels was destroyed. A surveillance camera at the site caught the blast and a car leaving the scene shortly after, per the GBI. Nobody was hurt.
The rest didn’t last the day. “For safety reasons, the structure has been completely demolished,” the GBI said. A backhoe operator brought down the remaining stones while GBI agents looked on, the Athens Banner-Herald reported. “We don’t know at this point what type explosive was used,” GBI agent Jesse Maddox said at the time.
Local historian Raymond Wiley, who co-wrote a book on the monument, summed it up for Religion News Service. “The stones would probably have survived a nuclear war,” he said, “but they could not survive Southern culture.”
The wreckage found a home that August. Elbert County commissioners donated the remains to the Elberton Granite Association, which said it would preserve them while the question of rebuilding was settled, Atlanta News First reported.
A year later, the site was gravel and weeds, and visitors were still arriving with shovels and paper bags to collect bits of grit as souvenirs, 11Alive reported. Property owner Wayne Mullinex said he has no plans to bring the stones back. “I put them up, but it wasn’t my idea,” he told the station. Investigators still hadn’t named a suspect.
The Guidestones weren’t the only American monument to borrow Stonehenge’s look. In Alliance, Nebraska, Carhenge arranges 38 vintage cars to match the dimensions of the original.