Near Pine Mountain, Callaway Gardens developed from a Depression-era effort by Cason J. Callaway and his wife Virginia to restore exhausted cotton land into a renewed landscape of lakes, plantings, and gardens inspired by a rare native plumleaf azalea. Opened in 1952 as the Ida Cason Gardens, it expanded with beaches, scenic drives, golf, forest land, and later resort facilities, becoming one of Georgia’s best-known attractions and drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Its history also includes financial retrenchment, storm damage, fatal accidents at Robin Lake, and recent management changes, while preserving its dual identity as a restoration project and resort destination.