This six-foot-by-three-foot slab of granite (with a fantastic lightning bolt of quartz shot through it!) has absorbed 80 years of human anxiety. The Worry Rock is 1938’s answer to the modern “Fear Jar,” only better because worried visitors can rest their butts upon it.

Placed in the center of town as a clever promotional stunt by an enthusiastic newspaper editor in 1938, the Hapeville Worry Rock became an instant media sensation. Folks traveling to all points south pulled their cars over to have their photo taken upon the rock.

In the eight decades since the rock’s 15 minutes of fame, it slowly faded into oblivion. Today, the Worry Rock is hidden within some bushes just outside the entrance to the Hapeville Depot Museum. Only elderly locals and die-hard curiosity seekers know of its existence. Now, two superhighways whisk folks right on past this forgotten treasure.