Quarrying and Production History
The first major Tennessee marble quarrying operations took place in Hawkins County in 1838, when blocks were cut for use in the United States Capitol in Washington. While there was demand for Tennessee marble, the industry was slow to develop due to difficulty in transporting the blocks from the remote quarry locations. The construction of railroads in East Tennessee during the 1850s provided a convenient mode of shipping the quarried blocks out of the region, but the outbreak of the Civil War again halted the industry's development.
After the war, Knoxville's economic promoters consistently extolled the qualities of Tennessee marble. In his 1862 work, Parson Brownlow's Book, Knoxville newspaper editor William G. Brownlow mentioned the "beautiful varieties of marble" found in East Tennessee. In an 1869 speech before the Knoxville Industrial Association, attorney Oliver Perry Temple argued that marble "lies all around Knoxville," and could provide wealth "sufficient to pay our State debt." During the following decade, the Baltimore-based W.H. Evans Company and the locally-headquartered John J. Craig Company established thriving quarrying operations in the region.
By 1882, eleven quarries were in operation in Knox County alone. By 1890, twenty-two quarries and three finishing mills were in operation in Knox County, including the massive Evans mill near what is now Lonsdale. In 1892, the Tennessee marble industry generated more than one million dollars in corporate profits, and employed over a thousand workers. By the early 20th century, East Tennessee was second only to Vermont as the nation's leading marble-producing region. While best known for its use in building and monument construction, nearly 80% of the Tennessee marble quarried during this period was used in furniture and interior decoration.
The Great Depression in the 1930s brought about a collapse in the demand for Tennessee marble, and numerous producers were forced into bankruptcy. Companies that survived shifted away from quarrying and focused more and more on fabricating imported marble. As of 2010, only one company, the Tennessee Marble Company, was conducting major Tennessee marble quarrying operations.
Read more about this topic: Tennessee Marble
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