Tombstone Tourists

Founded in 1850, the historic Oakland Cemetery sits less than a mile from downtown Atlanta.

Winding paths carry you through pink roses and magnificent magnolias,

creating a green oasis of calm in the midst of a busy gray-tinted city.

The most striking aspect of this particular cemetery, is the art and architecture. The scenic setting is home to elaborate mausoleums with Tiffany stained glass, and extravagant stone figures who gaze towards the heaven. The soaring sculpture that caught my eye was God's messenger, Gabriel, who stands 7 feet tall, high atop a 30 foot platform. The 1,500 pound angel was chiseled from Italian marble more than 130 years ago, and in 1873 it was placed at Oakland to mark the memory of former Georgia governor Joseph Emerson Brown.

Margaret Mitchell, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the most popular novel ever written, Gone with the Wind, is buried with her husband under a modest headstone. Nearby, stand the graves of two young siblings guarded by cherubic angels...uniquely, the faces of the angels were carved from actual death masks of the deceased. The Austell Mausoleum is the largest and most impressive mausoleum, it's built in a Gothic Revival style, and would have cost $90,000 to build in the 1880's. Nearly eight thousand Confederate Soldiers were laid to rest at Oakland, and the 3,000 that were never identified were buried under the watchful eye of the Lion of Atlanta....a beautiful sculpture of a mortally wounded lion with a broken spear in his back, who lays clutching a Confederate flag.

Unlike most prominent city cemeteries, Oakland Cemetery isn't home to only the rich and famous residents of Atlanta. Both celebrated and humble citizens are buried there,

so it's not uncommon to see a lavish, ornate monument beside a small, simple headstone.