Camak Stone, border marker between Tennessee and Georgia, is missing
Monday, August 24th, 2009
The Camak Stone, seen here in an undated photograph, was swiped from Tennessee over the weeked
Hark! The Camak Stone, a 14,000-year-old relic placed upon the invisible line separating Georgia from our fellow apes in Tennessee, hath gone missingeth!
The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that a volunteer for nearby State Line Cemetery, Freddie McCulley, noticed the [Camak Stone] was gone after discovering some vandalism at the cemetery.
A surveyor placed the Camak Stone in 1826 at what he thought was the 35th parallel marking the border between Tennessee and Georgia. The marker has become a source of controversy between the two states in a battle for water rights in the Tennessee River.
Georgia lawmakers have argued off and on since 1818 that the state’s border was actually a couple of clicks farther to the north — which would mean we’d have dibs on the Tennessee River and it bounteous flows. In 2008, some bills were introduced and a commission to discuss the matter was supposed to convene. But from what we’ve heard, there hasn’t been much movement on the issue.
But something strange is afoot.
The state House of Representatives followed the Senate’s lead this morning and voted 136-26 to pursue what some say is Georgia’s legal claim to water from the Tennessee River. The drought caused the desperation move, which all dates back to an 1818 surveying error that some legislators say botched the accurate location of where the border between Georgia and Tennessee should lie. The General Assembly also plans to exhume the body of the long-dead surveyor, shoot it into space, and then destroy the corpse with a missile. Kidding!