George Washington Carver State Park

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Red Top Mountain, located on Lake Allatoona, consists of 1,553 acres (6 km²) and derives its name from the rich red color of the soil that comes from the high iron content in the ground. In 1950, the state initially leased the land for 25 years from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The park served not only to preserve the area’s history, but also boost Bartow County’s growth and agricultural economy.

In 1950, Atlanta resident and former Tuskegee Airman John Loyd Atkinson Sr. was instrumental in establishing George Washington Carver State Park (1950-1975), the state’s only park ever named for an African American. Carver was a brilliant inventor and chemist who helped the devastated farming community and spurred the South’s peanut industry and was awarded the Roosevelt Medal in 1939 for saving southern agriculture. Atkinson had leased the 345 acres (1.4 km²) adjacent to Red Top Mountain Park from the Corps of Engineers with the intention of establishing a private resort for Blacks, like American Beach in Florida. Governor Herman Talmadge helped establish the park and assimilate it into Red Top Mountain State Park, although operated and maintained separately. Atkinson became the park superintendent, the first African-American park manager in the state, serving from 1950 to 1958. James Clarence Benham, father of Georgia Supreme Court Justice Robert Benham, became Carver Parks’s second park manager, serving for three years.