A slightly absurd, but symbolic monument to a pig and national unity (8 photos)
If it weren't for the sign, this strange piece of history would have remained hidden behind the trees on Highway 272 in Washington County. 
A bizarre and touching stone monument captures the moment a farmer's pig was rescued from a well. 
In the heart of rural Georgia, near the tiny town of Oconee, a group of neighbors band together amid the Great Depression to help a farmer rescue a pig from a collapsed dry well. 
According to a poem by Harold A. Lawrence published in 1992, during the Great Depression in 1933, a well-known local farmer named Bartow Barron lost a pig on his farm. The pig was Barron's winter meat supply. After several days of searching, he found the pig at the bottom of a dry well - 40 feet below the surface. Barron threw scraps of food to the fugitive to keep her fed. 
The farmer decided that if he shoveled dirt into the well, the pig would eventually climb out. 
Barron began to drag the dirt. He worked hard for the next 12 days. His neighbors joined him, and the pig was saved. 
That moment is preserved for future generations in the form of a stone monument in front of an old dry well located off Georgia Highway 272 in Oconee. 
The humble stone monument is a strange, yet touching and symbolic glimpse into the spirit of friendship and community amid one of the nation's greatest trials. Created and maintained by generations of local family descendants, as well as several professors from Georgia College in Milledgeville, this funny oddity offers a silent meditation on what people can do to help their neighbors. 
