Kings Mountain Obelisk

The U.S. Monument at Kings Mountain carries its argument in stone: an inscription on the south face describes the patriot victory of 7 October 1780 as the turning point of the American Revolution. The National Park Service quotes Thomas Jefferson calling the battle "The turn of the tide of success."

The park, near Blacksburg in South Carolina, preserves the battlefield, which the Park Service describes as the first major patriot victory after the British invasion of Charleston in May 1780. The obelisk stands 83 feet high above Battleground Ridge. According to the University of North Carolina's Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina project, it is built of white granite from the Mount Airy quarry in North Carolina on a two-stepped marble base, and its interior is hollow, with white marble bricks set against dark mortar. The same record credits McKim, Mead and White as architect and the Southern Marble & Granite Company of Spartanburg as builder, and gives the dedication date as 7 October 1909.