Tennessee marble is a type of crystalline limestone found only in East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Long esteemed by architects and builders for its pinkish-gray color and the ease with which it is polished, the stone has been used in the construction of numerous notable buildings and monuments throughout the United States and Canada, including the National Gallery of Art, National Air and Space Museum, and United States CapitolAnn Bennett, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for Candoro Marble Works, April 1996. in Washington, D.C., the Minnesota State Capitol, Grand Central Terminal in New York,The Grand Central Self-Guided Tour . Retrieved: 24 November 2010. and Union Station in Toronto.Union Station - History. Retrieved: 24 November 2010. Tennessee marble achieved such popularity in the late-19th century that Knoxville, the stone's primary finishing and distribution center, became known as "The Marble City.""Ask Doc Knox," "What's With All This 'Marble City' Business?" Metro Pulse 10 May 2010. Accessed at the Internet Archive, 5 October 2015.
While Tennessee marble is not true marble, its crystalline nature lends it a strong resemblance to marble, especially when polished. The stone occurs in belts of Ordovician-period rocks known as the Holston Formation and is quarried primarily in Knox, Blount, Loudon, Union, and Hawkins counties.Charles Gordon, The Marbles of Tennessee (State of Tennessee Geological Survey, 1911), pp. 5-33. While pink is the most well-known color, the stone also occurs in gray, dark brown ("cedar"), and variegated shades.
The use of Tennessee marble declined after World War II, when cheaper building materials became widely available. There are currently only six active quarries, all operated by the Tennessee Marble Company. The stone has most recently been used in the floor of the United States Capitol Visitor Center and for the 170-ton "First Amendment" tablet that initially adorned the facade of Washington's Newseum,Blount's Royal Pink Marble Featured in Washington, D.C.. The Daily Times, 6 April 2008. Retrieved: 24 November 2010. as well as the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Geology
Occurrence
Tennessee marble is found in the Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley Province, a series of alternating elongate ridges and valleys that lie between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau. The Holston Formation, in which Tennessee marble is found, occurs in a series of belts that follow the natural folds and faults of the ridges and valleys. While these belts can be up to 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.
The Luttrell belt, the westernmost of the Holston Formation belts, stretches along Copper Ridge from Beaver Creek in Fountain City northeast to Galbraith Springs (about west of Rogersville) in Hawkins County. The Black Oak belt stretches along Black Oak Ridge from Monroe County to the Corryton area in north Knox County. The Concord belt, one of the most heavily quarried, stretches from Sweetwater through Knox County to Strawberry 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 of Bays 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 the French Broad and Holston rivers ("Forks-of-the-River").
Lithology
While true marble is metamorphic, Tennessee marble is sedimentary and is therefore classified as limestone. Tennessee marble was formed from the accumulation of bryozoan and other primordial marine lifeforms 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician period. Even when polished, the stone retains a fossiliferous texture, with bryozoan and crinoid fossils being among the most commonly found. 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.
The most well-known shades are pink, gray, and cedar, but it also is found in blue, yellow, and cream shades. 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. Tennessee marble is also easily converted into lime, and mid-20th century lime companies occasionally erected kilns near defunct quarries for this purpose.Information obtained from interpretive markers at the Mead's Quarry section of Ijams Nature Center, Knoxville, Tennessee, November 2010.
History
As early as the late 18th century, Tennessee marble was being harvested for construction purposes, most notably for the Ramsey House on the outskirts of Knoxville and the "Old Stone House" near modern Friendsville. Visitors to East Tennessee were reporting the existence of marble beds in the region as early as the 1810s, and state geologist Gerard Troost provided an extensive description of Tennessee marble deposits in an 1831 report to the Tennessee General Assembly. The Rogersville Marble Company, founded in 1838, produced monuments and furniture stone extracted from a quarry in Hawkins 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.Carroll Van West and Susan W. Knowles, Marble Industry of East Tennessee, ca. 1838-1963, National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, 2 December 2013.
In 1850, Tennessee Governor William Trousdale chose the Rogersville Marble Company's marble as the state's representative stone for the construction of the Washington Monument. During this same period, marble from Hawkins County, either from Rice's quarry or a rival quarry south of Rogersville, was used in U.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 the Holston River, where they were loaded onto flatboats and transported downstream.
By the early 1850s, at least two marble quarries were in operation in Knox County, one of which supplied marble for the Tennessee State Capitol. The arrival of railroads in the region, namely the predecessor lines of the East 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 the Civil War.
In 1873, federal architect Alfred B. Mullett used Tennessee marble for Knoxville's Post 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 in St. Louis in the 1870s.
By 1882, 11 quarries were in operation in Knox County.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. This number had doubled within a decade,John Wooldridge, George Mellen, William Rule (ed.), Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1900; reprinted by Kessinger Books, 2010), pp. 204-206. as the rising popularity of Neoclassical architecture brought about a rapid increase in demand for marble. 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 the Knoxville flag. The community of Concord, located west of Knoxville, became a key marble transloading 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.
The Ross Quarry supplied marble for the J.P. Morgan Library in New York in the 1900s. The Candoro Marble Works, a large finishing mill, was founded in South Knoxville in 1914.
By 1908, Tennessee ranked third in the nation in marble production, behind Vermont and Georgia. While 80% of marble quarried in the state was used in furniture and interior decoration, it was best known as a monumental building material. Monuments and buildings constructed of Tennessee marble during the early 20th century include the St. Paul Public Library in Minnesota, the Richard C. Lee U.S. Courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Firemen's Memorial in Manhattan.
The rise of modern architecture and the short-term cost savings of using concrete, coupled with the onset of the Great 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 as New Deal federal construction projects encouraged the use of locally quarried building materials. Buildings completed during this period include the National Gallery of Art (West Building), the Knoxville Post Office, and the Tennessee Supreme Court Building in Nashville.
By the 1950s, only five Tennessee marble companies remained in operation. Some companies had turned to secondary products such as lime, 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. The stone was still produced on a smaller scale, however. It was used in the Edward Larrabee Barnes-designed Knoxville Museum of Art,"About the Knoxville Museum of Art," Knoxville Museum of Art official website. Retrieved: 30 October 2014. completed in 1990, and the BarberMcMurry-designed Gay Street addition of Knoxville's East Tennessee History Center, completed in 2005."Excellence Awards 2005: East Tennessee History Center," Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission website, 2005. Retrieved: 9 November 2014. 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.Tennessee Marble Co. Acquires Tennessee Valley Marble. Stoneworld.com, 7 May 2007. Retrieved: 24 November 2010.
Notable producers
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. 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.