Taking Vermont for Granite

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

While not known as The Granite State, that would be New Hampshire. Nor is it in the top five states of granite production in the country, Vermont does have a very prolific granite industry in the town of Barre (pronounced bear-ee). One of the businesses in Barre has a visitor center and tour and there are several other granite related things to see in the vicinity so we head the 60 miles to the east for a full day of all things granite. It turns out to be a rather pretty drive since we need to drive across the Green Mountains. It’s also a rather slow and twisty road so we will end up taking the longer drive back that uses Interstate 89.

We book a tour with Rock of Ages for their granite quarry tour that starts at 10:15 AM. It does mean we need to get a fairly early start (for us) but we make it thru the mountains and arrive 20 minutes before the visitor center opens at 10. Adult tickets are only $9 but their “senior” discount starts at 62 so we save a few bucks because we’re old.

Rock of Ages Visitor Center

Old Passenger Transport Box from Quarry

The visitor center is quite nice and after checking in for the tour, we have some time to explore the various displays and even watch a video about the operations that take place here. I definitely recommend being able to watch the video prior to the tour so that it will be a clearer as to how granite quarrying works. Rock of Ages primary granite products are memorials. Headstones seem to make up the bulk of their production but they also make mausoleums and columbaria and will even carve elaborate granite sculptures. They have lots of color options and it appears that only your imagination and pocketbook will limit what can be created.

Inside Visitor Center

Sample Headstones

Other Granite Projects

Rock Collection

The actual quarry tour is about a mile and a half drive from the visitor center. They don’t have a bus to take us there so we all drive our own vehicles caravan style behind the tour leader. Fortunately there were only three visiting vehicles so it wasn’t too bad to make our way over to a gravel road that takes us up to an observation point overlooking the quarry below. I’ll admit I was hoping that we would be driving inside the work area similar to the copper mine tour we took back in 2018 while in Arizona, but at least we are a few hundred feet above the quarry and only 600 feet or so across from the action so it does have a great vantage point to take in the scope of the place.

View of Quarry During Tour

Our tour guide talks about the operations in the quarry and how few people are required at any given time - about a dozen. The granite is not blasted out like we initially expected but is cut out in large blocks. Holes are drilled into the granite and a long cable with industrial diamonds impregnated into it are threaded through the holes and a large machine pulls the loop of cable slowly cutting the granite. Cuts are made on either side, along the back and underneath. Once cut, the workers put a large pile of dirt below the block and then use large payloaders to push the block over onto the dirt which helps to minimize breakage. Next the large slab is cut into smaller slabs that the equipment is able to pick up and move out of the quarry.

Crane Tower

The Worker Looks Like an Ant

Another Cut Taking Place

Payloader Move Huge Block of Granite

The cutting process takes weeks, so actually seeing one of the large blocks being pushed away from the wall is rather rare. In fact our tour guide has been doing the job for several years and has only seen it happen once. In the distance is another section of the quarry with huge piles of granite debris. Some of this waste granite is from breaking but the pieces are not small and may be many feet across in each dimension. In my mind, I’m thinking that there is a lot of good granite blocks that could be turned into something. But then the tour guide tells us about how a geologist had come in and did some measurements to help determine the size of the granite in the ground. If the quarry operated at the same rate it is at today, there would be enough granite to last 4500 years! I guess when there is that much inventory, they can be picky about what gets sent over to the main facility for processing into headstones.

Piles of Waste Granite

That's A Tall Ladder!

After the quarry tour, we drive back to the visitor center. The main building where the crafting of the memorials takes place is right next door. There is a self guided tour of the plant that sounded interesting. After entering on the first floor, there are stairs that lead up to a long hallway of windows that overlooks the factory floor below.

Factory Tour Entrance

Overlooking Plant Floor

It would have been easier to see what was going on if the large windows weren’t so dusty but we were able to get the gist of what was taking place. At the close end of the plants, it looked like the already cut headstones were being masked for the various names and other words and symbols that are selected for the given stone. We watched as two guys used an overhead crane to help lift and flip the stone for the work required on the other side. After this stage is done, the stones are rolled into one of many sandblasting chambers where the really dusty work takes place. In the distance we could see other workers hand polishing the granite as well as a very large CNC style machine making passes across side of a very large headstone or possibly the piece of a mausoleum.

Worker Laying Out Headstone

Flip It Over

Ready for Sandblasting

As we walk across the hallway to look down more of the shop floor, there was a large Jesus statue. Nobody was working on it and from our viewpoint, it looked like the work was nearly complete. It was all pretty fascinating to watch and since we don’t have a tour guide, we could stay as long as we wanted. I don’t have any real idea of how much even a simple headstone costs, but based on the amount of labor involved, I’m guessing they aren’t too cheap.

Lifesize Jesus

Back outside, we had one more thing to see. The granite bowling lane! According to the sign, this concept was developed in the 1950’s. While a granite lane would prove to be more durable than one made of wood, it turned out that the bowling balls themselves were unable to handle the hardness of the lane and would often break. The lane is still in usable shape with a set of pins and a couple of heavy plastic bowling balls. It wasn’t easy to even come close to hitting the pins let alone getting a strike. Heading back to the car, there is a large open dumpster with more manageable size chunks of granite from the creation of the headstones. While they might be a unique souvenir, we decide we don’t need to start a rock collection in the motorhome.

Granite Bowling Alley

Chris Looks for a Rock

Next stop in Barre was to do a short hike to the Grand Lookout. We had read about 2.2 mile walk and the people at the Rock of Ages visitor center also commented about this being a nice short hike with some good views. The trail is listed in AllTrails as the VAST and Grand Lookout Trail. The most interesting part of the hike is the last half up a hill off of Church Hill Road. But there is no parking along this road so we must start the hike at a small park nearby and follow some of the series of trails behind the park. It was a pretty walk with lots of wildflowers in bloom. There were some of the large piles of granite along the side of the trail but a sign nearby gave us a great description of why it was here and what it is called. Grout (Scottish for waste granite) was piled around the area of quarries. Originally granite was removed from the quarries by blasting. This technique produced lots of waste granite and the fact that the bulk of the granite from this region was being used for monuments where quality really mattered. It was estimated that up to 75% of the quarried granite went to the grout piles. Along the way is a short side trail that leads to an old quarry that now is a nice pond.

Lupine in Bloom

Bottom of Grout Pile Along Trail

Quarry Turned Pond

As we cross the street and head up the path towards the overlook, we are greeted by two large granite pillars on either side of the trail. But these were not simple rectangular blocks of granite but were very ornately carved. They seemed pretty fancy to be along the entrance to a short trail.

Granite Columns Along Trail

Column Detail

As we proceed up the hill, we come across large granite block walls on each side of the trail. Here too, these aren’t just simple blocks stacked to form a retaining wall but there are dozens of very creative carved figures. It was unclear as to why these works of art were on display here? Were they rejects from some projects over the years or were there so many granite sculptors in this area that this is the graffiti of Barre. Nevertheless, we spent a great deal of time getting a close look at all the figures. Here are some of my favorites.

Granite Block Wall

Soldier in Armor

Elks Emblem

T-Rex

Realistic Gorilla

Having a Rough Day?

Nearby this section of the trail was another old quarry turned into a pond as well as a stand alone statue of Hephaestus- the Greek god of stonemasons and sculptors. Some of the columns that surrounded the statue had fallen or were toppled. Even the nose of the statue had been broken off by vandals.

Another Quarry Pond

Vandalized Statue

A bit further up the trail, we reach the Grand Lookout. It is indeed a great view with even more ponds formed where quarries once operated. This was a short and unusual hike but well worth a visit.

View at Grand Overlook

Next we head into downtown Barre. We have an Adventure Lab that will tour us around town showing us some of the interesting sights. There are definitely a lot of buildings made of granite, but it wasn’t the only material used. There are many very beautiful big buildings to check out but possibly the most unique thing is the monument at the corner of Washington and Main Streets. The locals call the statue The Naked Man but it isn’t the statue itself that is special. It’s the bench that is behind it that is really cool. Called the whispering bench. It is roughly half of a circle with an arc length of 60 feet or so. Bring a friend and have one of you sit on one end of the bench and the other on the opposite end. Then whisper something. Amazingly, you can hear even the faintest sound they make.

Church in Barre

Impressive Steeple

Library

Vermont History Center

Whispering Bench

For our last stop of the tour around Barre and all things granite, we head to Hope Cemetery just to the north of town. This is a very popular destination for visitors whether you have a loved one buried here or not. Stonecutters from around the world moved to Barre in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s to take part in the booming granite industry.

Hope Cemetery Entrance

We pull into the beautiful grounds and start to wander around the roughly 65 acres. We were instantly struck by how many ornate tombstones there are here. Even the simplest of headstones was more elaborate than the vast majority of ones we have seen elsewhere.

Superman Theme

Detailed Carving

Vroom Vroom

Biplane

It wasn’t clear at the time whether Barre was simply a very affluent community and with the large number of granite carving craftsmen living here, everyone got a fancy headstone created? When I looked into the history of Hope Cemetery, I discovered that roughly 75% of the tombstones were carved (obviously in advance!) by the occupants of the graves. There were so many very creative and highly unusual headstones that I found it difficult to pick out the “best”. We spent a great deal of time walking the grounds and marveling at the workmanship of these talented artists.

Rather Unusual

The Bored Angel

Normally I don’t dedicate a full blog post to one day in our fulltime journey, but with the unusually high number of photos, our day in Barre Vermont deserves to be remembered. Next post will get back to some great hiking and a bike ride.