Granite Quarries of Mount Desert Island

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Granite Quarries of Mount Desert Island

Granite quarrying began as early as 1870 on Mount Desert Island at Hall's Quarry.

“The list of public buildings, libraries, state capitols, city halls, churches, and residences built with Maine granite is a lengthy one. Not only building stone but paving and curbing stone and rubble were in such demand that many schooners and larger vessels were kept busy. As in other trades, the quarry owners often owned and operated their own fleets.

It was rough and heavy work and the last resort of many an old vessel that had seen her best days. For example, the famous old “Bloomer” launched on the west shore of Mt. Desert Island was still carrying stone out of Penobscot Bay eighty-two years later…” - “The Maritime History of Maine: Three Centuries of Shipbuilding and Seafaring” by William Hutchinson Rowe, published by W.W. Norton and Company, 1948, p. 263.

"In 1901 the State of Maine ranked first in the nation in terms of the value of granite produced [$2,689,300]… Maine granite was used for many purposes – literally from tombstones to paving blocks. Maine firms profited from lucrative government contracts for buildings in Washington and customs houses and post offices throughout the country. The pillars of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and Grant’s tomb in the nation’s capital were easily visible monuments to the skill and ingenuity of Maine craftsmen. Less obvious were the thousands of tons of stone from the Pine Tree State that went into cemeteries, dry docks, breakwaters, bridge abutments, cellars, fencing, hitching posts, curbing and paving along the eastern seaboard and beyond."

“The granite industry in the Pine Tree State, built on the sweat of native and foreign labor and nurtured by the infusion of outside capital, began to retreat from its economic zenith in 1905 as the changes in architectural styles, competing materials, and rising costs swept up the nation.” – "Tombstones and Paving Blocks: The History of the Maine Granite Industry" by Roger L. Grindle, A Courier of Maine Book, Rockland, Maine, 1977, p. xi, p. 183.

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