I believe the answer you are seeking is:
Horse Pens 40
Thomas V. Ress, Athens, Alabama
Horse Pens 40 is a privately owned 40-acre nature park located in the foothills of the Appalachians near the town of
Steele,
St. Clair County. The park, which contains a large number of unique natural
rock formations, sits
Mushroom Rock at Horse Pens 40
atop
Chandler Mountain,
Alabama's third highest mountain at 1,500 feet. The sandstone formations date to the Pre-Cambrian era between 600 million to 1.3 billion years before the present. The park is extensively used by rock climbers, who scramble up and down the challenging vertical sandstone faces with names like Mushroom Rock, Dinosaur Rock, Turtle Rock, the Headless Hen, and Big Elephant Rock. Extensive boulder fields, rock shelters, and natural stone amphitheaters dominate the landscape.
The rock shelters and the fortress-like boulder fields record a long history of human habitation and research indicates that the area may have been inhabited as many as 15,000 years ago. Archeological artifacts discovered within the park indicate that it was the site of ancient Indian burials. For centuries, the Horse Pens 40 site was variously occupied by the
Creeks and
Cherokees, who battled repeatedly over control of the area. The huge boulders and sheer stone walls formed a natural fortress that was valued by the occupants as protection, as a ceremonial site, and as a place to corral livestock. Local lore holds that a peace treaty between the Creeks and the Cherokees was signed on the property; the area was subsequently populated by the Cherokee until their
forced removal in the "Trail of Tears." During the
Civil War, Horse Pens 40 was used by locals to hide livestock, vulnerable family members, and valuables from marauding
Union and Confederate soldiers. When Confederate forces eventually discovered the site, they used it to store supplies for troops operating in the area. After the war, moonshiners and bandits moved into the area, capitalizing on the remoteness and using the rock shelters as hideouts.
In the 1880s, a Georgian named John Hyatt purchased land in the area with his wife. The original deed for the land from this transfer refers to the division of the property as "the home 40, the farming 40, and the horse pens 40, each tract consisting of 40 acres of land," thus giving Horse Pens 40 its name. Descendants of the original Hyatt family still occupy nearby areas of the mountain. The land was used for livestock grazing and
farming until the late 1950s.
Renaissance Faire at Horse Pens 40
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