For over 80 years Rock City on Lookout Mountain, Georgia, has been surprising travelers with a mix of engineered/augmented natural beauty — and gnomes. And creepy fairy-tale figures in a one-of-a-kind black light cave.
A bill introduced into the Georgia state legislature by Rep. Tommy Benton (R-Jefferson) would make it illegal to “abuse contemptuously” any statue, plaque, monument, or historical marker honoring Confederate symbols, soldiers, or celebrities.
“Wax museums never die; they just move to another city,” said Mark Pedro, art director for Christ in the Smokies Museum. He was talking about his own museum, which replaced a wax museum whose dummies moved to Tampa, and whose own dummies came from a closed wax museum in Hollywood — but the sentiment is universal.
“Sometimes kids are creeped out by the casket,” said Jordan Poole, executive director of the Paradise Garden Foundation. Jordan was showing us around Paradise Gardens, an enclave built in the 1970s by folk artist Howard Finster.
