While Tennessee marble is not truemarble, its crystalline nature lends it a strong resemblance to marble, especially when polished.[5] The stone occurs in belts ofOrdovician-period rocks known as theHolston Formation[5] and is quarried primarily inKnox,Blount,Loudon,Union, andHawkins counties.[6] While pink is the most well-known color, the stone also occurs in gray, dark brown ("cedar"), and variegated shades.[6]
The use of Tennessee marble declined afterWorld War II, when cheaper building materials became widely available. There are currently only six active quarries, all operated by the Tennessee Marble Company.[7] The stone has most recently been used in the floor of theUnited States Capitol Visitor Center and for the 170-ton "First Amendment" tablet that initially adorned the facade of Washington'sNewseum,[8] as well as theNational Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[9]
Tennessee marble is found in theAppalachian Ridge-and-Valley Province, a series of alternating elongate ridges and valleys that lie between theBlue Ridge Mountains and theCumberland Plateau. The Holston Formation, in which Tennessee marble is found, occurs in a series ofbelts that follow the naturalfolds andfaults of the ridges and valleys. While these belts can be up to 75 miles (121 km) long, they are rarely more than a few miles wide. In 1911, the Tennessee State Geological Survey identified six primary Holston Formation belts containing Tennessee marble: the Luttrell, Black Oak, Concord, Knoxville, Bays Mountain, and French Broad belts. A seventh belt, the Galbraith in Hawkins County, is considered an extension of the Black Oak.[6]
The Luttrell belt, the westernmost of the Holston Formation belts, stretches along Copper Ridge from Beaver Creek inFountain City northeast to Galbraith Springs (about 10 miles (16 km) west ofRogersville) in Hawkins County. The Black Oak belt stretches along Black Oak Ridge fromMonroe County to theCorryton area in north Knox County. The Concord belt, one of the most heavily quarried, stretches fromSweetwater through Knox County toStrawberry Plains. The Knoxville belt, also heavily quarried, stretches from southeast of Sweetwater to Ruggles Ferry (east of Knoxville) in Knox. The Bays Mountain belt is found along the southwestern end ofBays Mountain in south Knox County and stretches into northern Blount County. The French Broad belt is a u-shaped belt found at the confluence of theFrench Broad andHolston rivers ("Forks-of-the-River").[6]
While true marble ismetamorphic, Tennessee marble issedimentary and is therefore classified as limestone.[5] Tennessee marble was formed from the accumulation ofbryozoan and other primordial marine lifeforms 460 million years ago, during theOrdovician period. Even when polished, the stone retains a fossiliferous texture, with bryozoan andcrinoid fossils being among the most commonly found.[5] A noticeable feature is the presence of jagged horizontal gray or black lines, or "stylolites." Known as "crowfeet" by quarrymen, these form from residual insoluble materials left over from the natural limestone dissolution processes.[5]
The most well-known shades are pink, gray, and cedar, but it also is found in blue, yellow, and cream shades.[6] Along with its aesthetic colors, builders preferred the stone for its durability, the ease with which it is polished, and the fact that the stone is virtually impervious to stains.[6] Tennessee marble is also easily converted intolime, and mid-20th century lime companies occasionally erected kilns near defunct quarries for this purpose.[10]
The 18th-century "Old Stone House" nearFriendsville, Tennessee, built of brown Tennessee marble
As early as the late 18th century, Tennessee marble was being harvested for construction purposes, most notably for theRamsey House on the outskirts of Knoxville and the "Old Stone House" near modernFriendsville. Visitors to East Tennessee were reporting the existence of marble beds in the region as early as the 1810s, and state geologistGerard Troost provided an extensive description of Tennessee marble deposits in an 1831 report to theTennessee General Assembly. The Rogersville Marble Company, founded in 1838, produced monuments and furniture stone extracted from a quarry inHawkins County. Marble Hall, a house built by the company's director, Orville Rice, contained numerous Tennessee marble interior elements and acted as a showplace for the company.[11]
In 1850, Tennessee GovernorWilliam Trousdale chose the Rogersville Marble Company's marble as the state's representative stone for the construction of theWashington Monument. During this same period, marble from Hawkins County, either from Rice's quarry or a rival quarry south ofRogersville, was used inU.S. Capitol extension projects (William Dougherty, the construction superintendent for the Washington Monument, was instrumental in obtaining the marble). Transporting the quarried blocks out of the region presented a major challenge for these early companies. Mule teams, often led by local African American entrepreneurs, carried the blocks to theHolston River, where they were loaded ontoflatboats and transported downstream.[11]
1856 newspaper ad for a Knoxville-based Tennessee marble company
By the early 1850s, at least two marble quarries were in operation in Knox County, one of which supplied marble for theTennessee State Capitol. The arrival of railroads in the region, namely the predecessor lines of theEast Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway, provided a major boost for the industry and helped Knox County overtake Hawkins as the region's primary quarrying and production center. The industry was also aided by an infusion of northern capital in the years following theCivil War.[11]
In 1873, federal architectAlfred B. Mullett used Tennessee marble for Knoxville'sPost Office and Customs House, sparking a nationwide curiosity in the stone. Mullett acquired the marble from a quarry at Forks-of-the-River. After the building's completion, businessman George Ross and several associates organized the Knoxville Marble Company to assume control of this quarry and provided marble for the construction of the Mullett-designed Customs House inSt. Louis in the 1870s.[11]
By 1882, 11 quarries were in operation in Knox County.[12] This number had doubled within a decade,[13] as the rising popularity ofNeoclassical architecture brought about a rapid increase in demand for marble.[11] Knoxville, the industry's chief financial and production center, became known as "The Marble City" during this period and even included a marble mining derrick on theKnoxville flag. The community ofConcord, located west of Knoxville, became a key marbletransloading center, where blocks were transferred from boats to rail cars for transport out of the region. By 1885, Concord was home to ten marble-related companies.[11]
Marble blocks being loaded onto train cars at what is now Mead's Quarry in 1895
The Ross Quarry supplied marble for theJ.P. Morgan Library in New York in the 1900s.[11] TheCandoro Marble Works, a large finishing mill, was founded in South Knoxville in 1914.
The rise ofmodern architecture and the short-term cost savings of using concrete, coupled with the onset of theGreat Depression, led to a decline in the Tennessee marble industry by the end of the 1920s. The stone experienced a brief resurgence in the 1930s asNew Deal federal construction projects encouraged the use of locally quarried building materials. Buildings completed during this period include theNational Gallery of Art (West Building), theKnoxville Post Office, and theTennessee Supreme Court Building in Nashville.[11]
By the 1950s, only five Tennessee marble companies remained in operation. Some companies had turned to secondary products such aslime, which was often produced in kilns located near the quarries. The rise in foreign competition and changes in demand for building materials led to further decline, and most Tennessee marble companies had closed by the 1980s.[11] The stone was still produced on a smaller scale, however. It was used in theEdward Larrabee Barnes-designedKnoxville Museum of Art,[14] completed in 1990, and theBarberMcMurry-designed Gay Street addition of Knoxville's East Tennessee History Center, completed in 2005.[15] The Tennessee Marble Company, founded in 1993, is currently the only major producer of Tennessee marble. The company was operating six quarries as of 2007.[16]
Abandoned quarry nearFriendsvilleWalls of the Ross Marble Quarry in South Knoxville (now part of the Ijams Nature Center)Sullivan channeler used to cut stone blocks
Rogersville Marble Company, the first Tennessee marble company, founded in 1838 under the directorship of S.D. Mitchell and Orville Rice. The company obtained its marble from a quarry in Hawkins County (possibly located along Caney Creek west of Rogersville), and offered interior furnishings such as floors, doors and mantelpieces. By 1850, Rice was operating a "marble factory" near Rogersville that used water-powered machinery to produce monuments and tombstones.[11]
Knoxville Marble Company, founded in 1873 to assume control of the quarry near Forks-of-the-River in east Knox County where the marble for the Knoxville Customs House had been obtained; William Patrick was the first president, George W. Ross was secretary-treasurer. Ross's son, John M. Ross, became president of the company in January 1886. The company eventually sold its Forks quarry to the W.H. Evans Company.[11][13]
John J. Craig Company, founded by John J. Craig (1820–1892) in 1878, reorganized as the Great Southern Marble Company in 1884, and joined with Evans to form the Tennessee Producers Marble Company in 1889. In 1896, the company left the Tennessee Producers partnership, and once again operated as the John J. Craig Company.[17] Craig's son, John J. Craig, Jr. (1860–1904), and grandson, John J. Craig III (1885–1944), would eventually serve as presidents of the company.[17] John J. Craig III and several business partners established theCandoro Marble Works in South Knoxville in 1914. The company operated quarries near Friendsville andConcord, and was the foremost producer of pink Tennessee marble in the early 20th century. The Friendsville quarry and the Candoro Marble Works have been listed on theNational Register of Historic Places.[11]
Ross-Republic Marble Company, established in the late 1890s by the merger of the Republic Marble Company and the interests of Knoxville Marble president John M. Ross. After the sale of the Forks-of-the-River quarry to Evans, Ross established a quarrying operation (now known as the Mead Quarry) across the river in South Knoxville. He sold the quarry to Republic in 1898. Republic, led by president Frank S. Mead, had been operating quarries in the Concord area. John M. Ross subsequently purchased a quarry (now known as the "Ross Quarry") on property adjacent to the Mead Quarry, and would operate as an independent dealer in the early 20th century. Both the Mead and Ross quarries are now managed by Knoxville's Ijams Nature Center and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[18][19]
W.H. Evans Marble Company, established inBaltimore in 1867, and was overseeing an operation in Hawkins County by 1880;[11] later operated quarries near Friendsville and the former Knoxville Marble quarry at Forks-of-the-River. In 1886, this company built its massive mill near Lonsdale in Knoxville,[13] which by 1911 employed 26 gang saws, nine rubbing beds, and over 100 workers to produce over 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) of finished marble per year.[6] The company also operated two mills in Baltimore and produced products using both Tennessee and imported marble.[13]
J.F. Woods and Company, established by Concord quarry operator James Farmer Woods in the late 19th century. Woods was extracting marble from Callaway Ridge near Concord by the 1890s and opened a marble cutting mill around 1900.[11]
Appalachian Marble Company, established in the late 19th century by Harmon Kreis and Thomas Deane. Kreis, a former Knoxville Marble Company timekeeper, had developed the Gray Knox, American Marble, and Gray Eagle quarries.[11]
Tennessee Producers Marble Company, founded in 1889 by John J. Craig and W.H. Evans to market their respective quarrying companies' output; while these two companies left the partnership within a few years, this company persisted under the direction of W.B. McMullen and bought its own quarries.[13][17] In 1911, it was operating the Bond Quarry near Concord, the McMillan Quarry northeast of Knoxville, and the Dunlap Quarry near Friendsville. The company also operated a large mill on University Avenue in downtown Knoxville that employed over twenty-five gang saws to produce over 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) of finished marble per year.[6]
Gray Eagle Marble Company, founded in 1902 by former Craig Company employee John Barksdale Jones; supplied "gray, gray-pink, eagle-pink and argent-gray" shades of marble.[20] Jones's descendants continued operating this company into the mid-20th century. Its mill and office complex still stand on Sutherland Avenue in Knoxville (most recently home to Southeast Precast Concrete).[11]
Tennessee Marble Company, founded in 1993. This company currently operates six quarries and two production factories in East Tennessee.[7] After acquiring the assets of Tennessee Valley Marble in 2007, the Tennessee Marble Company became the primary producer of Tennessee marble.[16]
Sculptor Jack Rich described Tennessee marble as an "excellent sculptural stone," though difficult to work with due to itshardness.[21] Two of the best known Tennessee marble sculptures,E.C. Potter's lions, "Patience" and "Fortitude," stand outside the entrance of theNew York Public Library Main Branch.[22] ThePiccirilli Brothers also worked with the stone, most notably creating the entrancetripods at theLincoln Memorial in Washington,[23] and several statues at the base of theUSS Maine National Monument in New York.[24] The Italian-born sculptor Albert Milani (1892–1977), who worked at the Candoro Marble Works in Knoxville, created numerous works using Tennessee marble, including the four eagles atop theKnoxville Post Office and the "History of the World" relief at thePennsylvania State Capitol.[1]
^C.P. White, Mary Rothrock (ed.), "Commercial and Industrial Trends Since 1865,"The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee (Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1972), p. 223.
^abcdeJohn Wooldridge, George Mellen, William Rule (ed.),Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1900; reprinted by Kessinger Books, 2010), pp. 204-206.
^American Society of Mechanical Engineers, "The Folsom Powerhouse No. 1Archived 2014-11-11 at theWayback Machine," National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark report, 12 September 1976. Retrieved: 7 November 2014.
