Stone Mountain Klan, was commissioned to do the carving. Borglum abandoned the project in 1925 (and later went on to begin Mount Rushmore). The US Mint issued a 1925 Commemorative silver US half dollar, bearing the words "Stone Mountain", as part of a fundraiser for the monument. This was the largest issue of commemorative coins by the U.S. government up to that time. American sculptor Augustus Lukeman continued until 1928, when further work stopped for thirty years. In 1941 segregationist Governor Eugene Talmadge formed the Stone Mountain Memorial Association (SMMA) to continue work on the memorial, but the project was delayed once
Cornelia Van Auken Chapin had formerly belonged the Gutzon Borglum, with Marion Sanford. In the summer of 1949 she was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 1951 to 1953 Chapin served on the New York City Art Commission. Chapin was most famous for her sculptures of birds and animals, though she also sculpted human figures. Between 1930 and the early 1960s, Chapin exhibited in galleries in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California, Washington, DC, New Jersey, Maine, and Paris, and won numerous awards and prizes for her work during the 1930s and