Vermont mining companies stay grounded

Vermont Business Magazine, Jan 1994 by Barna, Ed

There seems little danger of the marble supply running out, especially for use as calcium carbonate. Bums said OMYA has numerous viable deposits to choose from, but the Middlebury quarry alone should last from 50 to 100 years. Once abandoned, it will become a lake about 3,000 by 800 feet in size and about 500 feet deep -- 100 feet deeper than Lake Champlain.

GRANITE

Granite came later in the state's history than marble or slate, but has risen to prominence since. It was used for millstones from the early 1800s, but the traditional starting date for the modern industry is 1833, when granite was chosen as the building material for the new Statehouse in Montpelier.

As in the marble industry, one company has come to predominate. The Swenson Granite Company, founded in 1883, and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Rock of Ages Corporation and Royalty Granite Corporation, continue to be managed by the owners, descendants of founder John Swenson.

Royalty Granite was formed by Swenson Granite in 1992 to purchase Coggins Granite, Inc, in Georgia. Rock of Ages, based in Barre, has a wholly owned subsidiary, Rock of Ages Canada, Ltd., which by 1963 combined two old-line Canadian firms, and now holds minority interests in two others. Rock of Ages and Oshio, Inc of Osaka, Japan in 1992 formed Rock of Ages Asia Corporation under Japanese laws as an indirect affiliate of Rock of Ages, which now markets Swenson companies' granite to Japan and the Pacific Rim.

In all, the Rock of Ages group has an ownership interest in 44 North American granite quarries, 29 of which are wholly owned, plus minority interests in 15 others. Of the roughly 63,000 cubic meters of granite produced annually, the highest annual output comes in the form of light and medium Barre Gray from the EL Smith Quarry near Barre City in Graniteville.

There are three other Rock of Ages group quarries operating: the Adam-Pirie Quarry in Graniteville, with dark Barre Gray; the Fletcher Quarry, 20 miles north of Barre in Woodbury, producing coarser Woodbury Gray; and the Bethel Quarry in Bethel, with Bethel White granite. The Lawson Granite Company of Barre operates the Hardwick Quarry in Hardwick, which provides a type of gray granite called Hardwick Blue.

The quarries support 23 area manufacturers, who sometimes bring in other colors of granite from states like Georgia, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, or from abroad. In addition, there are nearly 40 related businesses: equipment suppliers, sandblasters, diamond saw companies, and so on.

The businesses are grouped into the Barre Granite Association, begun in 1889 as the Barre Granite Manufacturers' Association and changed to its present name in 1932. Unlike most trade associations, it goes beyond public relations and educational programs to provide collective bargaining and labor relations services.

Lewis Shattuck, the Association's executive vice-president, said the combined economic impact of the 60-some companies is about $150 million. "They're making a real contribution to the state of Vermont," he said, but general ignorance of the scale of that impact has made granite "the forgotten industry."