Note: This article is part of a series about American quarries. If you work for a quarry that’s a member of the Natural Stone Institute and you’d like your quarry to be featured here, contact Karin Kirk. Thank you!

 

Arizona’s desert landscape is famous for its shades of the sunset. Cliffs, canyons, and mesas of russet orange and tawny brown have become icons of the American Southwest.

Among sweeps of tan, red, and grey rock sits a surprise: A pocket of gleaming white marble.

Even the geologic map makes barely a passing mention of it—but the stone is a spectacular find that rewards those who look deeper.

 

The legacy of minerals

The Cochise Marble quarry is located near Bowie, AZ in the Chiricahua Mountain range. The region is the ancestral lands of Apache tribes and was acquired by the United States from Mexico in 1848. American military expeditions, surveyors, and prospectors set out to explore the territory, striking gold in the Chiricahua Mountains in 1860.

Decades of struggle ensued, writing more chapters in the ages-long battle between resource extraction and indigenous people that has been repeated throughout history. Though it’s a difficult part of our American story, the Cochise Marble company tries to honor the origins of the land and the people who lived here before us. The crew operates with a light touch on the landscape with a goal to diligently use all materials extracted from the land.

Cochise County, named after the revered Apache Chief, has derived much of its prosperity from ores and minerals. The area has been home to gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc mining. These metallic deposits were formed when molten magma melted its way through older sedimentary layers. Fluids circulating through the hot rocks concentrated the metals, which eventually solidified into veins within the rock.

The heat from the magma had another effect—it warmed up the surrounding rocks, causing localized changes that are too small to appear on most geologic maps. Near the crest of the Chiricahua mountains, the Escabrosa limestone was heated and recrystallized, changing it from a sedimentary rock to a metamorphic one, and transforming 300-million-year-old marine limestone to a white marble of rare quality.

 

 

“Are you sure that’s from Arizona?”

Camden Mueller, marketing manager for Cochise Marble, recalls a common occurrence. People look at our stone and say, “Oh is this Italian?” Camden recalls one anecdote at a trade show, when he explained the stone is from Arizona. An onlooker exclaimed, “I live in Tucson! There’s no way. That’s impossible.” Camden is accustomed to having to explain the unlikely stone, having done it many times before. “So I showed her a video. I said, ‘No, here it is, look! I promise I’m not pulling your leg.’”

Josh Gonzalez, a co-owner at the company, picks up the story from there. “I think people expect more of the brown colors that you see out here. They’re like, ‘Oh it’s Arizona, western, it’s the desert, there’s no way there’s marble.’” Josh describes the frequent questions: “’Is that 100% marble?’ And we’re like, ‘Yes, it’s 100% marble.’” Josh breaks into a laugh as he replays the conversation. “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m sure.” “Has it been tested?” “Yes, it has.”

The element of surprise is an obvious source of pride. It hints at the uniqueness of the quarry and the commitment of the company to bring Arizona marble to a market that might not expect it.

 

“Let’s start digging.”

Marco Gonzalez is involved with strategic planning for the company. He’s also Josh’s uncle. Marco has logged more than 30 years working with stone. “I love it every day,” he says. Marco, Josh, and Camden shared the story of the origins of the quarry, beginning in 1908.

Josh muses, “Sometimes you wonder, like, back in 1908 who said, ‘Oh right here. Marble. Let’s start digging.’”

The original quarry operated for around thirty years, and like so many historical quarries, it shut down, sitting idle for over six decades. In 2002, a local businessman and cattle rancher named Matt Klump set his eyes on reopening the quarry. At the time, the quarry was owned by a family in Texas, who didn’t even realize they owned it. Josh explains, “Matt approached them and said, ‘Hey you guys own this quarry.’ And they’re like, ‘We own a quarry?’”

The Klump family purchased the quarry and created the Arizona Marble Company. Matt then built a partnership with Josh and Marco to launch Cochise Marble, LLC. Matt is an integral part of the operation. “We’re all active in this quarry,” says Marco. “We all work together.”

Bringing the quarry back to life took about two years. “We knew that there was an investment for us to work our way into this quarry,” Marco recalls. “Once we decided we were ready – and that was about eighteen to twenty-four months into it – the investment was in place, we had all the right equipment, the right personnel – that’s when we went to market.”

But starting from scratch is an uphill climb. “Did the projects just come flowing in? No,” says Marco. “We have to go out there. Hence the reason that Camden is working for us in marketing and merchandising.”

After a few years building their inventory and forging new networks, the company now has traction in commercial projects. Business is steady, and Cochise marble will be part of a four-year long commercial project that will be the company’s largest contract to date.

 

 

An ethos of efficiency

“One thing to say about Matt,” says Camden. “He is the one who really instilled the idea of using every single piece of marble.”

Blocks and slabs are the high-profile quarry products, but smaller pieces are cut into veneer, and leftover remnants are crushed into gravel. “But then it even gets finer than that,” says Camden. When gravel is crushed down, some sand is produced. White sand is used for decorative planters and as an ingredient in cement. The 99% purity of the marble means it can be processed into a refined powder for adhesives and pigments.

“So, from the sand to the block … every piece is being used,” says Camden.

“It’s environmental,” Marco adds. “For us it’s not only business. It helps our environment.”

A locally-derived product is another way to trim one’s environmental impact. Moreover, rising fuel prices and bottlenecks in the global supply chain make a domestic stone all the more appealing. “We are getting more inquiries because people want to buy American,” says Marco.

 

Quarry taking shape

The team describes the company’s vision and roadmap for the stages of quarry development. The Cochise crew hired a master quarrier from Europe to help them assess the rock layers. “He did his due diligence on the quarry,” says Marco, which allowed the team to move ahead with their plan and begin quarrying.

Currently, the company is cutting blocks from the same general area that was originally worked 100 years ago. This horizon contains white, black, grey, and multi-colored marble. Cochise White is a pure white marble with subtle veining, lending an airy, ethereal vibe to the stone.

A little higher on the hillside is another set of ledges that contain white marble and a grey-blue marble. Higher still, there’s one more deposit. Marco describes it: “The very top is where we have a very, very unique stone. It’s a beautiful white marble. The background is similar to the Statuary marble out of Italy, with black veining.” In honor of the Apache warrior who dedicated his life to protect his homeland, the marble is named Geronimo. “It will take us some months where we have a steady supply of it,” says Marco, with a mixture of pride and anticipation.

Camden picks up the storyline from there. “We have another unique stone—the signature stone. And our master quarrier when he first saw the stone, he stood on top of it and he called it ‘caviar.’ It has about six colors in it. So, we named it ‘American Caviar.’ It’s a stone that is only found in one place in the world.”

American Caviar is a blend of dark grey calcite marble with layers lenses of light grey, silica-rich chert. Chert is a common ingredient of limestone, and it forms as small accumulations of nearly pure silica on the sea floor. The silica hardens into oval-shaped layers or rounded nodules, and they tend to stand out from the limestone in both color and texture. When the Escabrosa limestone was transformed into marble, the original pattern remained, giving the stone a large-scale spotted appearance. Hence, the name. American Caviar offers a bold pattern that works as a landscape feature or as dramatic bookmatched slabs.

 

 

A creative approach

Camden credits some out-of-the-box thinking that helped them bring their products to market. “It comes down to a little bit of our creativity,” he says. “As a marble quarry everybody expects slabs, stair treads, pavers, things like that. But we’ve really brainstormed to bring new products to the market.” The company offers firepits, water features, and textured paving stones. “Those aren’t things that you see every day,” says Camden. When people see products crafted from this southwestern marble, Camden describes their reaction as “amazing.” He continues, “They’re so excited to see this. And it’s just been a domino effect where people say, ‘Oh my gosh I want one.’”

The exploration of new products from an unlikely stone is a fitting example of the intricacies of geology—from a huge planet, we find joy in small and beautiful details. All the better when it surprises us.

 

 

 

More from the American Stones Series

Note: This article is part of a series about American quarries. If you work for a quarry that’s a member of the Natural Stone Institute and you’d like your quarry to be featured here, contact Karin Kirk. Thank you!

 

On a late summer weekend in August 2011, Hurricane Irene made landfall for the ninth time, in Brooklyn, NY. The storm had whipped itself into hurricane force some 2,400 miles southward, first crossing over land in the Virgin Islands, then striking Puerto Rico and the Bahamas before gathering strength and bouncing up the eastern seaboard, making landfall three more times, in North Carolina, New Jersey, and finally Brooklyn. The following day, the storm veered inland and churned her way northward through the New England countryside, stalling over southern Vermont, dropping nearly one foot of rainfall in a single day.

The steep slopes of Vermont’s Green Mountains funneled the rain into streams and rivers, and the famously bucolic waterways transformed to raging torrents. Many of Vermont’s roadways follow stream valleys, and water rose beyond the stream banks and gushed over the pavement, ripping out chunks of tarmac, carrying off cars and pickups, and dislodging bridges that had stood for over a century.

Almost every stream and river in the state flooded. Six people were killed, and 500 miles of roadway were damaged. Thirteen towns were left stranded when bridges and roads that served them collapsed, leaving no access to the community.

Among those unlucky towns was Rochester, home of the Vermont Verde Antique quarry.

 

Rising waters

“All of Vermont was devastated,” recalls Tom Fabbioli, the owner of the quarry. “We were like an island. We lost all of our access to roads.”

Due to the widespread extent of the damage, the power remained out for days. Tom uneasily watched water rising in the bottom of the quarry, which couldn’t be pumped out without electricity. As the water rose, Tom searched frantically for a generator, but one obstacle after another prevented access to backup electricity. Three days after the storm, with the power still out, water stood just ten inches below $250,000 worth of equipment inside the quarry.

“I believe in fate, whatever that means,” Tom says with a laugh. “I’m a positive guy.” After pursuing numerous options, all he could do was hope for the best. But luck went his way, and the power was restored in the nick of time. Pumping resumed, and the equipment was saved. “I was very thankful,” says Tom, with relief still clear in his voice ten years after the incident.

 

Overburden saves the day

Tom had purchased the quarry only four years prior to the storm, and shortly after he took the helm, the 2008 recession gripped the economy, cutting the company’s sales by 75%. After the company navigated its way out of the recession, Irene took another swipe at the operation.

But the natural disaster had an upside. Before roads could be rebuilt, stream banks needed to be stabilized and restored. Massive amounts of rock and fill would be needed to replace what had been washed downstream. “We had a pile of waste rock from the 1950s; this huge pile of rock,” says Tom, “and within two months, it was all gone.”

Managing waste rock and the “overburden” of soil and fractured rock that sit above the more valuable deposits is a fact of life for every quarry. The material has its uses, but it might not be the most interesting sales prospect. In the fall of 2011, that waste rock built an essential lifeline that reconnected towns and rebuilt infrastructure.

Even 60 years’ worth of overburden was not enough to meet the demand for repairs. Tom recalls the Vermont Department of Transportation approached them again. “So, they asked us what other rock do we have?” Tom and his crew hired drillers and blasters to extract more rock, removing layers of chlorite schist that lie above the more valuable serpentine.

The excavation of new stone for roadways was good fortune on many levels. It helped the state recover from storm damage, it provided steady sales for the company, and it fostered the development of an entirely new access point for the quarry. In essence, the work set the stage for the coming decades of quarrying.

 

“It’s like a Cracker Jack box”

Vermont Verde’s original quarry is so impressively deep that it’s a tourist attraction. The sheer rock walls step down into the Earth with geometric precision. The walls of the quarry are dark green with white veining, and a pool of turquoise water sits at the bottom, 200 feet down.

The picturesque worksite suffers from one major problem, though.

“It takes us about an hour to pull one block out of the hole,” says Peter Fabbioli, Tom’s son and business manager of Vermont Verde. Even after all the planning, drilling, and cutting of each block from the deep quarry, it still takes an hour just to lift one block up to ground level. “It’s very time-consuming,” Peter says. “So, if you can imagine, we have like 50 blocks down there – there’s 50 hours of crane movement.”

As the quarry team extracted rock for roadbuilding, they did so strategically, with a new concept in mind. “We’re starting a new area where we are going to go down next to the old quarry,” says Peter.

To convert the deep hole quarry into a drive-in quarry, the crew started 1,500 feet away and 34 feet lower than the surface of the existing quarry, and cut in a keyway, working their way toward the existing deep hole.

The ramp into the old quarry will run straight through the center of a second serpentine lens, which they’ve located via drilling and core sampling. This will allow the double benefit of providing better access to the old quarry while also accessing a whole new deposit along the way. “We’re in a good location to start,” says Peter, adding, “It’s like a Cracker Jack box. You don’t know what you’re going to find.”

 

What is serpentine?

Vermont Verde Antique is a serpentine, and it’s not unlike the coveted prize in a Cracker Jack box, because it occurs as isolated deposits within bedrock of schist and phyllite.

Although serpentine is often called green marble, it’s not marble, nor is it particularly similar to marble. Verde Antique is deep green, rippling with white veins. The stone has a Mohs hardness of around 5 and doesn’t etch from household acids. For those seeking the look of marble without the upkeep, it’s a sound option.

Vermont Verde has a somewhat complex geologic history, but it’s a fun story to tell.

Serpentine is a metamorphic rock that originates very deep inside the Earth, usually in the lower crust or the mantle, which is a thick zone of hot, semi-solidified rock that lies beneath Earth’s solid crust. Verde Antique serpentine began its life as basalt, which is the igneous rock that makes up Earth’s ocean basins.

Fans of geology know that rocks don’t always stick around in their original locations. Around 450 million years ago, the east coast of the U.S. went through a geologic train wreck known as the Taconic Orogeny, caused by a volcanic island chain crashing into the east coast of North America. When land masses collide, the ocean floor that once stood between them gets “subducted” or pushed underneath the continents. But it’s not quite as tidy as that. Some oceanic rocks get scraped up and folded into the overlying sediments, then the whole mass gets plastered onto the leading edge of the continent. It sounds messy, but that’s how Vermont was made.

All told, the landscape around Vermont got compressed by 600 miles, squeezing the rock layers into tight folds and transforming them into metamorphic rocks. Slivers of ocean crust, long detached from their ocean, got pushed downward and exposed to hot, mineral-rich fluids. The heat and chemical reactions transformed the basalt into serpentine, in a process helpfully named “serpentinization.”

Fractures in the rock filled in with calcite and magnesite, creating white veining that hints at how the rock was pushed, pulled, and twisted underground.

Because the serpentine originated as small scraps of ocean crust, the serpentine deposits are found in pockets, rather than in a continuous layer. Vermont Verde’s original quarry taps into one pocket, and the new quarry is aiming for another one.

 

One of the “little guys”

As the crew prepares the next section of the quarry, Tom and his team continue to work the original hole. “we’re nearing the best of the area” says Tom. “Mike firmly believes that some of the best deposit is down there.”

Mike Solari is among the tight-knit crew of eight people that work at the Vermont Verde quarry. With 26 years of experience, he’s of enormous value to the company. “It’s a great place to work,” he says. “The Fabbiolis are a great family, a lot of fun to work with.” Their connection is easy to observe, even on a Zoom call.

The leadership team of Vermont Verde has a distinctly different feel than most others. There’s visible pride as Tom describes their operation as “one of the little guys.” Many of today’s quarries tend to be owned by large companies with substantial resources. But Tom’s path is different. “I started out as a cabinet maker,” he says modestly. He first went into business for himself at the tender age of 21, and he bootstrapped his way into general contracting, then renovating historic buildings. “I did it with all my own working capital,” he says.

With dreams to buy a quarry, he began scouting. “I went around the world looking for different quarries,” he recalls.

Tom first bought a stone fabrication shop in Barre, Vermont, which eventually led him to the Verde Antique quarry. “It was not a straight line, let’s put it that way,” he says. Indeed, one could even say it was a serpentine path that led him to the beautiful, deep hole in Rochester.

Through all the chapters in his career, Tom’s foundational philosophy becomes evident. “I have always produced something where the customer’s expectations were met or exceeded. And when you do that, you always seem to have work. You always seem to be busy.”

Nowadays, Tom doesn’t need to shoulder the entire burden; his three sons all work in the business. “I have worked with my father hand in hand since I can remember,” says Peter.

Both Peter and Tom consider Mike to be an honorary member of the Fabbioli family. “We have a wonderful quarry and we’re happy to have purchased it,” says Tom, “but having Mike part of the family business here has been—it’s better than the quarry. You know? He is a wonderful, wonderful asset.”

 

“It can’t get more white…”

A quarry operation can do a lot to ensure success, but it can’t control the aesthetic whims of the market. In recent years, kitchen design has leaned strongly toward white, grey, and neutral colors. The move away from saturated colors has been “a negative impact on us,” says Tom.

When manufactured quartz entered the marketplace, it pushed the trend even father toward colorless surfaces.

Tom recounts their internal conversations about design trends: “I would say, ‘It can’t get more white than it is now.’ And sure as hell…”

Peter chimed in, and father and son finished the sentence in perfect harmony: “It got more white!”

Nevertheless, Mike points out that the stone’s enduring history is a bigger benefit than the color-du-jour. “Verde Antique was used in so many commercial projects, so a lot of restoration work is going on now.”

In the meantime, the chlorite schist that was excavated for road repair may prove to be another color option the company can offer. It has a subtle, silky glint of mica and a grey-green, muted color that would be at home in contemporary designs.

 

Northward migration and local devotion

Regardless of the ebbs and flows of stone fashion, Tom and his crew recognize their strongest market is the one closest to home. “We have a wonderful clientele, noting that dedicated customers are mostly local but come from all over. “We have customers that will go out of their way—we’ve had people coming in from California and all around the country.”

Spurred by the pandemic, the local market expanded as people migrated northward, away from the more populous parts of the eastern seaboard. This fueled a steady stream of work and a strong interest in Vermont Verde. “People wanted to come to the showroom. People wanted to see it,” recalls Tom. Peter adds, “All the fabricators we were talking to, they were gung-ho through the whole pandemic.”

Tom “I think the reality is people look at our stone and there is a draw – there is something they feel – whether they remember it from something old or wherever this connection comes from, but I think that’s only developing in a more positive way.”

As a lifelong Vermonter, Mike appreciates the bond of the local culture, “That’s a big thing here in New England. They love buying local stones. We have a lot of fabricators that are regulars. Somebody comes into their shop and they say, “Look at this Verde Antique. It comes out of Vermont. It’s nearby.” People like it for that reason and the fabricators like it also,” he says. “It’s a big, big thing.”

More from the American Stones Series

Note: This article is part of a series about American quarries. If you work for a quarry that’s a member of the Natural Stone Institute and you’d like your quarry to be featured here, contact Karin Kirk. Thank you!

 

It’s not every day that sandstone makes national news, but when Cleveland’s baseball team changed its name to the Cleveland Guardians, the name prompted an outpouring of curiosity. What, exactly, are Cleveland’s guardians?

As many have since learned, the team’s new name refers to the Guardians of Transportation, which are eight massive statues that grace a bridge across the Cuyahoga River. The art-deco figures were completed in 1932, and they symbolize the spirit of progress in transportation.

The vicinity around Berea, Ohio, is known as “the Sandstone Center of the World,” and the guardian statues are one of many examples of exquisite carvings made from Berea sandstone.

Berea sandstone is famous for good reason; it’s a durable stone with few irregularities. It can yield large blocks with an even grain and consistent coloring, and it can be carved, sawn, or chiseled to suit nearly any taste. The sandstone straddles the all-important line of being hard enough to withstand the elements, yet soft enough to be workable.

Though the stone was first used to make grindstones, its abilities as building stone became readily apparent, and northern Ohio became a hotbed for quarries, stretching westward from Berea into Elyria and Amherst. Beginning in the mid-1800s, holes were sunk into the ground and became ever larger and deeper, as the extracted blocks found their way onto churches, courthouses, banks, and monuments, and the reach of the stone extended past Ohio into Chicago, New York City, Canada, and beyond.

During the heyday of Berea quarrying, it was one of the largest industries in the state, and the Buckeye quarry reached a depth of 240 feet, said to be the deepest quarry of the time. The May 1887 edition of The Manufacturer and Builder heralded the stone and, saying “the production and sale of this valuable material employ a small army of men.” Dozens of quarries and mills operated throughout the region. Eventually the smaller operations were bought up by larger ones, until two large companies had amassed most of the quarries. The Cleveland Stone Company was formed in 1886, and rival Ohio Quarries formed in 1903. In 1929, the Cleveland Stone Company bought out Ohio Quarries, launching the Cleveland Quarries Company, which continues today.

Though there are many fewer active quarries in the region, the tradition of quarrying and stone masonry has never stopped. Cleveland Quarries is keenly aware of its deep history, but it’s also embracing innovation. While the techniques, customers, and applications have all changed over the nearly 200-year history of Berea sandstone, the stone itself remains as dependable and useful as ever.

 

An evolving business model

​Dave Dunn, the Director of Sales at Cleveland Quarries, describes why Berea sandstone has remained desirable for so long. “It has a very tight matrix binding the minerals. It is very predictable. At the same time, it’s workable enough to make it easy to carve, yet hold fine details. And then, you combine that with the inherent strength and properties of the stone itself. It’s very desirable. Carvers like working with it.”

In one sense, Cleveland Quarries continues to do what it always has: quarry stone for use in paving, slabbing, and dimension stone. But Dunn explains that the company has “evolved quite drastically” in recent years. The combination of high-end residential clients and a focus on cutting-edge methods has ushered in a new chapter in the company’s long history.

Zach Carpenter, company President, reflects on the transition over the past decade. “We focused at the beginning on the very simple projects. We didn’t have the capacity to do a lot of the things we do now. And every year, we’ve added more to our capacity.” Carpenter points out that the company hasn’t abandoned its original focus. “We still do what we’ve always done—but we’re really pushing on the more complex because of the level of expertise we’ve gained.”

“We will always promote our stone,” says Carpenter, “but we also are really starting to promote our capabilities.”

 

Carving out a niche

Cleveland Quarries went high-tech in 2013, when they purchased their first 5-axis CNC machine to carve stone. CNC stands for computer numerical control, and it’s an automated cutting tool that follows a programmed pattern while carving and shaping every side of the stone. A 5-axis machine costs about as much as a single-family home in the Vermilion area, and since 2013 the company has since added two more 5-axis machines. The combination of a reliable stone, skilled craftspeople, and computer power have made Cleveland Quarries a leader in a niche market. Carpenter expresses a sense of satisfaction: “We’ve taken on jobs that we simply never could have taken on before.”

The use of computerized tools has changed the flow of production. “Those machines run in the evenings when we’re not there,” says Carpenter, “so a lot of that work can be done by a single operator along with some labor to load up saws.” Carpenter explains that programming and operating the machines are high skill jobs, but “they’re less labor intensive than when we needed to do it all by hand.”

Hand-carving remains an essential part of the process. “We have several hand carvers and a couple artists here as well,” says Carpenter.

Dunn describes the balance between using computer power and skilled hand labor: “It’s a finely choreographed dance of how much work is done on the CNCs and how much is done by our hand carvers,” he says.

Dunn explains that the CNCs are best used to “bulk out” blocks of stone, beginning with a rough block and shaping it partway into the finished piece. Then the piece is passed to the artists.

“These hand carvers are fully capable of taking a square piece of stone and turning it into a very organic carving,” says Dunn. “But it’s not always the best use of their time to bulk out and remove material when the saws could do that overnight.”

“There is a lot to be said for having work done by hand and just that artistic touch on some things, you can’t replace with a machine,” Carpenter says.

Dunn adds, “That’s what our clientele want. They don’t want something done by a machine because anybody can buy that. They want something unique.”

 

A “high skill set”

High-end work rests on the shoulders of a high-end workforce. Cleveland Quarries employs seven carvers, who have “a very high skill set” says Dunn.

“Our lead carver, I think he’s got at least 25 years of doing this,” says Carpenter, adding that old-world skills are passed on within the company. “It happens somewhat naturally, believe it or not. It’s not a structured program. It’s sort of a natural process,” he says.

On the computerized side of things, Carpenter explains, “you could go to school to be a CNC programmer, but the machines in the stone industry are unique to the stone industry,” he says. “Stone is a totally different animal.”

The bottom line is that the skills of the trade are honed on the job, and a lot of education and training happens within the company.

“It’s not just about programming saws, but how do you handle it, how does it work, what does it look like, do you cut with the grain or against the grain—there’s a lot of intricacies,” says Carpenter. “This isn’t something you can go to school for.”

 

Carrying on a 175 year-old legacy

Cleveland Quarries operates the only fully functioning quarry in the Berea sandstone; thus the company has inherited the legacy of all the buildings made from the stone.

“There are federal buildings and courthouses and cathedrals all over the country built out of this stone,” Dunn says. Because of that, there’s a steady flow of projects to repair, restore, or expand historical buildings.

The Michigan state capitol is one such project, completed in 1879 and clad “entirely out of our sandstone,” says Dunn. Some of the original hand carved elements of the building’s stonework were replaced with newly carved versions in 2015, and a new visitor center will be built with the same stone that was used on the building in 142 years ago.

The list goes on: “We’re doing a city park project down in the southern tip of Florida,” says Dunn. “We’ve got a couple restoration projects going on in the New York area. We’re doing some work out on Long Island— private residential projects. We’ve got a very large-scale project taking shape in Wyoming. We’re continuously doing work on the Canadian parliamentary complex in Ottawa.”

The scope of projects shows both the historical importance and the modern utility of Cleveland Quarries’ stone.

“That’ll give you a sense of how far spread out we are,” says Dunn. “The farther outside of Cleveland we get, the more unique things typically become.”

 

A geologic mystery

Berea sandstone is a familiar stone amongst masons and architects, but to this day it remains a bit of an enigma in the geological community. The age of the rock has been hotly debated by geologists over the past 30 years. Depending on exactly who you ask, Berea Sandstone is from either the late Devonian Period, or the early Mississippian Period. The dividing line between those two epochs of geologic time was 359 million years ago.

The problem stems from the fact that there are few fossils in the sandstone, and fossils are what’s commonly used to establish the age of sedimentary rocks. In the absence of fossil evidence, geologists are left with more subtle clues about the age, such as how the rock relates to the layers above and below it. Berea sandstone spans several states and at present, the geological surveys in different states have assigned slightly different ages to the stone.

It’s always gratifying to watch the march of science as fuzzy questions become increasingly clear with better techniques and new analysis. For now, we’ll have to be content to call the age of Berea sandstone as somewhere around 360 million years ago, give or take a few million years.

Rewinding back to that part of geologic time, rivers were cutting deep channels down into the shale layers that sit below the Berea. Over time, the channels were filled with fresh sand that was carried in by the rivers. Sediments from river deltas piled more sand on top of the channels, creating a more or less level plain. Then sea level began to rise, washing in marine sand, like you’d find in a shallow beach. Each of these three phases laid down slightly different layers of sand, and by studying the patterns and ripples in the sediment, geologists can tell if the sand was left by a river, a delta, or an ocean.

Eons after the sand grains came to rest in a watery current, a mason’s chisel methodically and expertly uncovers them. With the swipe of a blade, daylight spills across the sand once again.

 

 

More from the American Stones Series

Note: This article is part of a series about American quarries. If you work for a quarry that’s a member of the Natural Stone Institute and you’d like your quarry to be featured here, contact Karin Kirk. Thank you!

 

From quarry customer to quarry owner

Rob Teel didn’t set out to be a quarry owner. “I got kind of painted into a corner by a quarry operation that told me halfway through a project I couldn’t get any more stone for about six months,” he recalls. “I just wondered how I was supposed to run a business or finish a project.”

He pondered his options for local limestone. “There were only a handful of sources out there. One of the sources was very expensive. One didn’t have good quality. One of the other guys wasn’t interested in selling blocks,” he says.

Sometimes the best way forward is to tackle obstacles head-on, so Rob decided to buy his own quarry. He describes the new direction as, “get in or be at the mercy of others.”

After being a stone dealer and fabricator for 12 years, Continental Cut Stone entered a new chapter as a quarrier. More than twenty years later, they’ve never looked back.

 

Started off simple, but…

The quarry is in Lueders—a small rural community in central Texas where outcrops of pale limestone jut out along the banks of the Brazos River. Within those humble ledges is a world-class building stone, the Lueders Limestone. Rob’s initial intent was to keep the operation simple. “We opened the quarry just to supply this one ledge block that we’d been buying from other people,” he says. But it didn’t stay that way for long.

Rob recalls the progression of the quarry. “We added a saw to utilize some of these other ledges, and then we added a chopper. When we added a chopper, we added another saw. Then we added another saw and a chopper. We put another saw in and we added a truck scale and another saw, and before you know it, it’s a lot more moving parts.”

But progress didn’t stop there, and Continental Cut Stone continued to expand. In 2009, the company added another limestone quarry to its stable when they re-opened a quarry near Liberty Hill, TX, that had been idled. The quarry produces Cordova Cream and Cordova Shell, the latter featuring crisp imprints of shell fossils.

Today Continental Cut Stone employs 60 people in the two quarries and a fabrication shop in Florence, Texas. The diverse operations of the company are run by husband-wife team Rob and Katherine Teel.

The added complexity is a business risk, but Katherine explains the upside, “Unlike other providers of limestone, Continental Cut Stone has our own quarries and produces the limestone elements in our fabrication mills. So, that helps with cost effectiveness and also control over the product.”

“The ability to control the source is absolutely a benefit to our customer,” Rob says. “We get to choose the best material.”

 

Developing the sustainability process, then going through it

The Teel’s journey from quarry customers to quarry owners is one of several times the company has been on different sides of the same street.

The Natural Stone Sustainability Standard is another example. When the standard was first adopted by the Natural Stone Council in 2014, Rob was one of the early proponents. “I’ve been part of the [sustainability standard] since the beginning,” he says. The company officially earned certification to the standard in summer 2021.

Kristin Cannon is the Project Coordinator at Continental Cut Stone, a position that demands a keen ability to balance many projects at once, all while learning on the fly. Among her many duties, Kristin has been responsible for shepherding the company through the process of attaining the Natural Stone Institute’s Sustainability Standard for their Cordova quarry and their fabrication mill.

“Limestone is a very sustainable product in general,” Kristin says. “We make a conscious effort to practice as sustainably as we can.” This is doubly true for the Cordova quarry, which is a leased property. Among many small-footprint practices, the Cordova quarry uses reclaimed water that settles in a small lake on the property, and is pumped back to the quarry for reuse. “You don’t want to leave a major impact on somebody else’s property, or on the earth in general,” Kristin says.

The sustainability certification process involves measuring and documenting energy use, water use, waste output, land management, and community engagement. “We just had our onsite audit a few weeks ago,” says Kristin. The audit verifies the information submitted during the application process, and helps find ways to further lower the operational footprint. In this case, “coming up with a couple of different options of ways we could potentially reduce energy here at the mill,” Kristin says. “It’s been a very interesting process.”

“This certification will allow us to have that extra stamp of approval.” Kristin says they can advise masons and architects that “not only is our product sustainable, but we manufacture it in a sustainable way.”

While Kristin manages the nitty gritty of the sustainability certification, Rob and Katherine aim to grow the program across the stone industry. Rob hopes the sustainability program gets a wider following, because the more options there are for architects to specify certified stone, the more likely they’ll do so.

In that vein, Katherine is pushing to build awareness about how sustainable natural stone can earn credits through certifications like the Living Building Challenge and LEED. Using material certified to the Natural Stone Sustainability Standard is among the many ways to earn points within the LEED rating system. Katherine has the energy and drive to build bridges between different groups within the larger sustainability arena. “I get real passionate about it because I think it’s a great program,” she says. “I’m trying to build it as we go.”

 

From women as outliers to women as leaders

Katherine has formed strong networks with allied associations within the architecture and masonry communities. In much of her work in the industry, she’s been the sole woman on various committees. “They are all very male dominated,” she says.

She recalls being “so excited” about the Women in Stone program, which strives to “recruit, retain, and advance women in this industry,” Katherine says. She jumped into the program with both feet, joined the steering committee and eventually became chair of the mentorship program. “Kathy Spanier started that and then handed the reins to me, which was awesome because she had done so much work,” says Katherine enthusiastically. (Read more about Kathy’s pioneering work in sustainability and mentorship.)

Katherine notes that similar professional development programs are popping up in related fields: “Women in architecture, women in masonry, women in stone,” she explains that these professional associations “create that bond and that camaraderie” that may be lacking when you’re the only woman at the conference room table.

Naturally, Katherine guided Kristin to the Women in Stone mentoring program, and Aaron Hicken (from Delta Stone in Utah) mentored Kristin at the start of her career. “Getting a chance to learn from those people and having confidence knowing what I am talking about– that helps in dealing with outside customers, masons, whoever that may be,” she says. “Even in the short 5 years that I have been here, it has made a huge difference in having the confidence to work in the industry.”

 

Building a business, then building the industry

Texas does things in a big way, and their stone industry is no exception. As the state’s population grows, so too does the demand for building materials. In the Lueders area, when Rob opened his first quarry, “there were eight or nine operations,” he says, “and now there’s close to twenty.”

“I’m happy to be part of an economy that’s soaring right now,” Rob says. “It’s truly rewarding and challenging at the same time. I love what I do.”

Rob and Katherine’s interests go farther than their own company, and yet again they find themselves coming full circle. “We hope to be one of those companies that tries to give back to the industry,” says Rob.

Katherine is on the Natural Stone Institute’s Sustainability Committee and has been on the board of the Central Texas Masonry Contractors Association, in addition to her leadership role in the Women in Stone program.

Rob served on the Natural Stone Council board for over 12 years including a stint as Chairman of the Board. Previous to that he was President of the Building Stone Institute. “We put a lot of effort and time into national initiatives, and I think being involved is important for all of us.”

Katherine acknowledges that time spent on industry-wide efforts takes time away from their own business. “We’re just super honored and privileged to be as active as we are,” she says. “But, it’s for everybody. It’s for the industry.”

 

Sea level rises, sea level falls

Continental Cut Stone’s two quarries both contain limestones, but they come from completely different times in Earth’s history. The Lueders quarry contains smooth, uniform, fine-grained limestone that ranges from pale grey to warm tan. These rocks are from the early Permian Period, around 280 million years ago. The landscape at that time was a low-lying coastal area that was a mixture of rivers, deltas, and inland seas. The limestone ledges within the Lueders Formation formed during periods when shallow water covered the landscape. Not long after that, seas departed from Texas and a more arid environment took shape. At this same time, all of the world’s continents managed to collide into each other, forming one colossal landmass called Pangea. Texas became landlocked within the supercontinent and red desert sands swept over the limestone layers.

Fast forward 150 million years to the Cretaceous Period, when the Cordova Cream and Cordova Shell limestones were formed. The Cretaceous Period, as any 9 year old will tell you, is when dinosaurs were around. Sure enough, the layers just below the Cordova limestones are famous for their dinosaur tracks, as the beasts wandered around muddy tidal flats, leaving deep footprints behind. Then sea level crept higher once again, and rich marine life populated the seas. Cordova Cream has faint patterns from undersea currents, and is made of ooids, which are small, sand-like pellets of lime. Cordova Shell is an aptly named stone, teeming with coiled gastropods and ridged clamshells. The stone is literally full of life, requiring no imagination to envision the bustling marine environment that inhabited central Texas at that time.

Through all the restless pulses and cycles of the Earth, rocks are left behind as testament to past events. For some, stone is a documentation of the twists and turn in our planet’s history. To others, it’s a ready-made building material. But a stone like Cordova Shell can satisfy either audience; it’s a building stone that showcases our planet’s history while also serving as a wall, a bench, or a classical Tuscan column. Natural stone truly is the best of both worlds.

More from the American Stones Series

Note: This article is part of a series about American quarries. If you work for a quarry that’s a member of the Natural Stone Institute and you’d like your quarry to be featured here, contact Karin Kirk. Thank you!

 

Jake Barkley appears to be perched on the edge of his seat. In a Zoom conversation with Barkley and his colleagues at Kasota Stone, the vibe is one of casual intensity and sharp focus. Much of the stone industry rests on centuries-old quarries with a multi-generational history of operations, but Kasota Stone emerged only seven years ago. “We’re kind of breaking in on the scene,” says Barkley, the principal founder of the company.

Barkley and his team bring forth an unusual business model, a collaboration with the State of Minnesota, and a clearly-articulated determination to grow and thrive.

“How do we scale up and grow this business at a rapid rate to be able to compete at a national and international level?” asks Barkley, reflecting on the question that’s driven him for the past seven years. “That kind of stuff just doesn’t happen by accident.”

 

Core values

Kasota Stone adopted an approach called Entrepreneurial Operating System, which is a framework to help companies understand their goals so they can stay focused on their main purpose. Business decisions are centered around a set of core values, which Barkley recites: “Commitment to excellence, tenacity to deliver, empowered optimism, problem solver, and family.” He adds, “It kind of sounds squishy, but for us, it’s real.”

The best place to see the values in motion is to look at the people at the company. “One of our strengths is our people,” says Barkley. “In the quarry business, there is nothing easy that happens here,” he says, acknowledging that it’s one of the toughest jobs he’s ever had. “Some of these folks just work their tails off and tenacity to deliver is first and foremost one of our best core values,” he says. “We’re super proud of that.”

 

Keeping company culture vibrant during COVID

During the pandemic, “big get-togethers just haven’t happened” says Barkley, “which is like the antithesis of building your culture.” Undeterred, the management team has been facilitating mobile, outdoor lunch gatherings for each department. “Colin makes a mean lunch that nobody can resist,” Barkley says with a grin, referring to Colin Kimball, the company ‘integrator,’ who oversees the various departments throughout the company.

Kimball sets the stage: “Bring a big grill, cook a bunch of burgers, cook a bunch of brats, laugh a little bit, poke fun at each other, blow a little bit of wind in everybody’s sail and then get back to work,” he says. “It’s all about engaging with people at a real human level.”

Brandon Archer, Director of Sales and Marketing, jumps in with a recent anecdote: “We did one in January and it had to be 15 degrees outside and Colin and I were cooking burgers. It was fun. When you bring some dedication and actually go out to deliver ­– people appreciate that.”

Perhaps a healthy appetite is an unspoken addition to Kasota’s core values. “We’ve got a bunch of big, strong eaters on our team,” Kimball mused.

 

“The find of a lifetime”

Kasota’s initial foray into natural stone production was a limestone quarry at the company’s headquarters in Mankato, MN. In the last few years, they’ve opened to two new granite quarries in northern Minnesota ­–Superior Northern granite near Ely, and a green granite quarry near Isabella. Barkley describes the company’s Superior Northern granite as “a deposit of rare quality.”

 

The discovery was no accident. Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources is charged with finding and managing mineral resources in the state. A state geologist identified the sparkling black granite as one with market potential, and Kasota leased the land from the state and began quarrying in 2015.

The stone has few joints or fractures, and can be extracted in large, flawless blocks. Barkley describes quarry faces over 100 feet long and 40 feet tall with no irregularities or cracks. “The color is consistent the whole way,” he adds.

If you want to please your geology friends, Superior Northern is called anorthosite. The term ‘black granite’ is a geologic oxymoron, because granites are light colored by definition. Superior Northern is made almost entirely of dark grey feldspar. Feldspar crystals have flat surfaces that reflect light, and the larger the crystals, the bigger the wow-factor. Depending on the surface finish, Superior Northern can have a subtle glint, a hologram-like twinkle, or a brilliant gleaming sparkle.

Barkley recalls that the geologist who found the deposit “went bonkers for it because he knew what we had in there,” he says. “It was the find of a lifetime.”

 

Duluth Complex

Around 1.1 billion years ago, the North American continent literally began to tear itself in half. Driven by a plume of heat rising through Earth’s mantle, the landscape that straddles today’s Minnesota-Wisconsin state line cracked open, with Minnesota heading northwestward, and Wisconsin pulling away to the south. This feature is called the Midcontinent Rift, and it was potentially the birth of a new ocean.

As the tectonic plate started to rupture into two pieces, basaltic lava oozed up and filled in the cracks. The plate stretched further apart, more lava seeped in, and the sequence repeated. The stretched and broken crust created a low area in the landscape; a basin, if you will. This process went on for millions of years, and the basin widened and eventually filled with water. The Atlantic Ocean was formed the same way, and is still continuing to widen today, pulling Europe and North America ever farther apart by about an inch each year.

But the Midcontinent Rift stopped rifting, and geologists still aren’t exactly sure why. After around 20 million years the action stopped. An ocean wasn’t destined to separate Wisconsin and Minnesota after all, and North America remained united as a single continent. Geologists call this a ‘failed rift,’ which seems a bit judgmental.

The Midcontinent Rift left behind a layer 10 miles thick of various igneous and volcanic rocks. Today, old lava flows form beautiful cliffs along the north shore of Lake Superior. An expanse of dark colored, dense igneous rock now sits north of Lake Superior, called the Duluth Complex. Most of the rocks in the Duluth Complex didn’t erupt like lava. They were formed in vast, underground pools of magma that cooled slowly over millennia. As the magma cooled, the semi-molten rock separated out into layers of different chemistries and densities. Pockets of metallic elements settled to the bottom of the magma chamber. Today, ores of nickel, copper, and platinum are found in the Duluth Complex, setting the stage for mining.

 

Amid mining controversy, quarry is “a win”

Public opinion in the rural Ely area is sharply divided over prospects for a new copper mine. Mining for metallic ores has a tragic legacy of land and water that remains contaminated for generations to come, forcing residents to choose between economic gain and environmental loss. That dilemma is thankfully moot when it comes to a granite quarry—natural stone is inert and nonpolluting.

“We can do what we do without releasing any sulfur and without discharging water that has contaminants in it,” says Barkley. Quarrying stone “is something you can do here that benefits economics and the community and the state, but we’re not doing all these harmful things along the way.”

Barkley says that people in the region are “hypersensitive to heavy metal mining,” and the topic is fraught with conflict. Amidst that controversy, the quarry offers a more agreeable option.

“We’re viewed as kind of a big win for this type of work in this industry,” he says.

 

From stones to school funding

Mining royalties are an important economic contribution to the state of Minnesota. Companies that extract minerals and rock from publicly owned land pay a royalty to the public coffers. The Superior Northern quarry sits on School Trust land, which means that the royalties help fund the state’s school system. In 2020, Minnesota’s School Trust lands generated $28 million in royalties for public education.

“It’s a pretty good deal,” says Barkley.

The active quarry occupies 36 acres within a leased property of 120 acres. “It is just beautiful,” says Barkley. He describes the site as a “drive-in quarry” because the deposit juts upward from ground level, with almost no topsoil above the rock. “The glaciers wiped it clean,” says Barkley.

“Just drive up and there’s the face—unreal,” says Barkley, panning his hands across an unseen slab of rock. “Like I said, it is rare.”

 

Uses of Superior Northern

The current emphasis for their black granite is landscape architecture, according to Archer. “We are having a lot of success with granite pavers right now,” he says. “Landscape is a big part of our business, but we do a lot of cut-to-size architectural stone as well,” says Archer.

Superior Northern is suited for walls, sculptures, and monuments, and the lack of fracturing in the stone makes it adaptable to many uses. The granite is fabricated in their Mankato factory, or sold as raw blocks and slabs.

Superior Northern granite’s ability to produce big blocks make it particularly useful for large-format retaining walls, where the primary competitor is cast concrete, “which is a huge, huge market,” says Barkley.

Concrete has a cheaper upfront price, but Barkley explains, “a lot of those materials were having issues after ten or fifteen years, from road salt and other things.” Over the long haul, granite outlasts concrete several times over, says Barkley. “So we’re finding a good niche—using stone in those instances where it can stand up to the elements.”

Archer fills in more details, “I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from architects that they absolutely love natural stone,” but the higher price can be a drawback. “We’re always having to coach and really help them to look beyond the initial upfront costs and consider the lifetime costs and benefits.”

“We’re more sustainable than the concrete,” adds Barkley. Concrete production releases CO2 from crushing limestone and uses substantial amounts of energy to manufacture. Concrete accounts for 8% of global carbon emissions. For natural stone, the only emissions come from cutting, finishing, and transporting it. The material itself needs no energy inputs.

 

Green spaces ease COVID stress

As 2021 reaches its midpoint, many of us are still wondering what the evolving pandemic has in store for our lives. Barkley reflects on implications for their company as we shift from staying home to branching out again. “I feel like part of the society change in the last year might be people wanting to engage with the outdoors and a simpler life.”

These changes have a direct connection to their business focus, as Kimball explains, “Every commercial project I have seen lately has an acute focus on how to get a great green space.”

Green spaces can be part of a park, waterfront, restaurant, or business plaza. Stone elements within a green space can include pavers, benches, outcroppings, and retaining walls. Using natural stone emphasizes a connection with the natural landscape, and “it’s really clear that people have a heightened level of comfort outside,” says Kimball.

Archer emphasizes that the large blocks of Superior Northern are well-suited for “seat blocks,” and Kimball noted that schools are interested in outdoor benches, “They’re getting ready for next year already, where they want to have 4th grade reading time outside.”

Barkley chimes in, “You know, we talk a lot about how the world has changed in the last year and a half, well, people have changed too. A lot of people are exhausted right now and they are realizing that there’s more to life.”

Barkley takes the conversation full circle by linking back to the company’s vision. “Our purpose is to enrich lives and enhance communities. We want to bring people together in these greenspaces. If we can be a part of that, we want to be.”

An outdoor gathering place for family, friends, and impromptu socializing amongst natural elements may be just the tonic for a weary society.

Barkley adds, “It is my belief that this trend is going to outlive the virus.”

 

More from the American Stones Series

Note: This article is part of a series about American quarries. If you work for a quarry that’s a member of the Natural Stone Institute and you’d like your quarry to be featured here, contact Karin Kirk. Thank you!

Jeff Krukowski and Joanie Krukowski-Whitt grew up on a small dairy farm, owned and operated by their parents. As the farm developed new pastures, one thing stubbornly stood in the way: rocks.

“Everywhere in the fields, there were boulders,” recalls Joanie. “In order to expand the farm and get the land ready, there were all these stones.”

With the pragmatism that’s become famous in the Midwest, the family began to view the field stones as an asset rather than an obstacle.

“Our parents hand-chiseled stones for local masons” says Joanie, and in 1978 her brother Jeff “took it upon himself to get a truck and to start picking those boulders.” He found customers in Chicago, and Joanie offers fond memories of the early days. “When I was a little kid, I’d ride with him into Chicago, I thought it was the neatest thing crossing that state line,” she muses. “We’re in a rural area, so getting out of state was a big deal.”

“Jeff is my older brother…” she explains.

“Wiser, also!” Jeff adds, as they both laugh.

“And I’m very impressed with what he’s done,” Joanie says.

 

From hand-gathered stone to nationwide sales

Krukowski Stone Company has grown mightily since the days of a single delivery truck, but it remains a family-centered business. In all, six family members work in the company: Jeff works alongside his wife Joyce and their two sons, Brad and Chris, and sister, Joanie Whitt, and brother-in-law Ted Kijak.

Beyond the family members, the company employs an additional 25 people, and works in six quarries spanning over 1,000 acres. The company built a state-of-the-art fabrication shop and a separate splitting facility – totaling over 50,000 square feet of production space.

Jeff’s sons oversee much of the fabrication; Chris runs the saw shop and polishing department, while Brad manages the splitting shop, shipping department, and retail sales. Together they do wintertime trade shows, “which are nonexistent right now,” adds Joanie.

Stretching far beyond its humble roots of gathering field stone, the Krukowski Stone Company now ships products throughout the U.S., Canada, and beyond.

“We’ve even shipped stone to Dubai,” says Jeff. “And Hawaii,” Brad adds.

“Oh yeah, Hawaii. Yeah, all over!” replies Jeff enthusiastically. “There’s only about two states out of the 50 that we haven’t shipped to,” he adds.

Joanie credits the family’s ingenuity and persistence for their success. “If there was something that could be done with this stone, Jeff tried it,” she says. “Back 25 years ago, he went to Europe, because they’ve been doing stone forever; he found great equipment and great companies to work with. Now we have the best equipment in the industry,” she says proudly.

 

Aqua Grantique

Krukowski Stone Company quarries two distinctly different stone types, but the quarries are only a mile apart.

Aqua Grantique is their best seller; it’s a dark grey metamorphic rock, infused with a greenish blue color and ribbons of white. “That blue color, nobody else seems to have it,” says Brad. “To me it’s really unique. When we do trade shows, it’s the first thing people look at.”

When polished, Aqua Grantique is nearly black, which sets off the lighter colored veins and lively movement. But in its unpolished state, the stone reads as soft greenish grey with a subtle sparkle – an entirely different character than the high-contrast patterns in the polished stone. It’s dense and durable, allowing it to withstand freeze-thaw cycles, saltwater, and other forms of abuse.

Thanks to the hard work of recent glaciers, boulders of Aqua Grantique dot the property. These are popular to use as landscaping elements, especially Asian-themed gardens. The unusual blue-green color lends itself to water themes, “We do lots of ponds,” says Jeff. The stone has been used in public gardens, commercial installations, and high-end private projects.

 

Quartz sandstone

The company’s quartz-rich sandstone comes out of the quarry as either slabs or blocks. Sandstone blocks can be used in the naturally layered shapes that come out of the quarry or can be split or sawn into various products. “We grade it in the quarry for potential use: flagstones, random dry wall, veneer stone, or stair treads,” says Joanie.

The quartz sandstone is an overall cream color, with darker shades of chocolate brown, orange, and tan on the weathered faces. The natural colors are sorted into different blends, to create either uniform coloration or mixtures of different hues, depending on the aesthetic style of the project.

Krukowski’s manufacturing facility sits in between the quarries, putting everything in close proximity. “Logistically it’s a great thing,” says Joanie.

 

Northern Wisconsin’s old rocks

Although the quarries are only a mile apart, they’re separated by more than 1 billion years of geologic time. Aqua Grantique is one of Earth’s truly ancient stones – around 1.8 billion years old. The quartz sandstone is a relative newcomer a mere half billion years old. How did such different stones end up right next to each other?

Northern Wisconsin is largely made up of rocks that are more than one billion years old, dating back to the Precambrian Era. These rocks contain geologic signatures of the comings and goings of mountain ranges, continents rifting apart, new landmasses adding on, and periodic volcanic eruptions. A lot can happen in a billion years, as it turns out.

Aqua Grantique is what geologists call a meta-volcanic rock. It once was molten magma that cooled and solidified into a dark-colored lava rock like basalt or gabbro. Later, the rock got buried, compressed, and heated, becoming a metamorphic rock through these processes. The high pressures of the subterranean environment created the stone’s wavy texture and chemical reactions gave rise to new minerals and colors.

By the end of Precambrian time, around 500,000 years ago, the tectonic action that created Wisconsin’s diverse collection of rocks had calmed down, and the landscape of Wisconsin had been eroded down to a fairly flat plain. During the Cambrian period, sea level began to rise and waves lapped onto the landscape, creating a beach. The geologic signature of encroaching seas is the same, no matter when and where it occurs: a layer of sandstone. Thus, a layer of fresh sandstone was laid down on top of the old, contorted metamorphic rocks.

This Cambrian sandstone layer is one of the most common and prominent rock types in southern Wisconsin, but in the northern part of the state, it was wiped away by erosion, once again exposing the ancient metamorphic rocks. But a few protected locations were overlooked by the erosive forces of water and glacial ice, and isolated pockets of sandstone were left behind. The Krukowski quarry is one such place.

The quarry has gained celebrity status amongst geologists, as it’s home to an extremely rare stash of jellyfish fossils. As you can imagine, a jellyfish is not an easy thing to fossilize, since it doesn’t have teeth, bones, or any durable body parts. But sure enough, certain sandstone layers in the quarry are dotted with round imprints of jellyfish that got stranded on the beach as the tide went out. The discovery made the cover of Geology, a high-profile scientific journal, and helped scientists learn more about the fauna of Cambrian seas.

It also made the quarry famous. “We get bombarded with phone calls,” says Joanie. “People are always asking, ‘Can we come see your fossils?’” Due to ongoing quarrying activity, fossil-hunting is not permitted.

American stewardship

In an era when so many products are made overseas, the Krukowski family prides itself on its local roots. “We are one of the few companies in the U.S. that make countertop slabs,” says Joanie. Jeff adds, “But it costs ten times as much to produce in America as it does in Brazil, or India, or China.”

The upside of American production is that the higher labor costs translate to good local jobs, and the shorter shipping distance helps offset the higher price of production compared to an imported stone. “It’s more cost effective, freight-wise,” says Joanie.

Local architects appreciate that Krukowski stone earns LEED credit for locally-sourced materials, and customers are drawn to the stone because it’s American-made. “We should all try to sell ‘Made in the USA,’” Joanie says.

The family has adopted numerous sustainability measures, not to bolster a green image for their brand, but simply out of a longstanding tradition of not being wasteful.

“We use everything, from end-to-end, once we quarry it,” says Brad. Smaller rock fragments are crushed into landscaping chips or a DOT-approved road base.

Cardboard gets reused as corner protectors for shipping stone, and shredded office paper is mixed with molding plaster to secure blocks during the sawing process. Broken pallets are repaired, and new LED lights illuminate the manufacturing and office spaces. Saws are used during off-peak hours whenever possible.

Joanie summarizes their outlook: “We were green before green was a term. We’ve always done everything we could to be very responsible with the environment.”

 

‘Can-do, will-do’

One thing that’s abundantly clear when talking to the Krukowski family is their ability to work hard. Even while running their stone business, they still tend the family farm. “Jeff grows corn and soybeans and raises beef cattle,” says Joanie. Undaunted by Wisconsin’s bitter climate, they quarry right through the winter, “as long as it’s above 10 degrees,” says Brad. The team appears easygoing and collaborative, though allegiance to the Green Bay Packers vs. Chicago Bears causes an occasional intra-family dustup.

Joanie reflects on the arc of her career as a woman in the stone industry. “They look to the man to answer the question,” she says, recalling instances where her expertise was overlooked. “It’s been a big struggle at times, but it’s getting better.” She credits programs like Women in Stone to help encourage a more diverse workforce in the industry. “Plus I’m older and more confident now,” she says.

“We have a can-do, will-do attitude,” says Joanie, but the sentiment is already completely evident.

Brad and Chris both became first-time fathers in September, a happy development for everyone. “And as soon as those kids can walk I’m going to teach both of them how to do book-keeping,” Joanie laughs, “and answer the phone!”

The pandemic has driven a major upswing in sales, so it looks like the Krukowski family won’t get to rest on their laurels anytime soon. “Our retail sales went up 200% last year,” says Brad. By late January, they had already received enough orders to carry them through the end of 2021. “We just got a 15,000 square foot job ten minutes ago,” says Brad.

Joanie chimes in, “Yeah, you never know what that next call is gonna be.”

More from the American Stones Series

Oceans may seem like permanent features, but it turns out they are not. Ocean basins open and close throughout geologic time, pushing continents apart, then drawing them back together as geologic forces continually redraw the map of the world.

Today’s Atlantic Ocean is relatively new, if you consider something that’s 200 million years old to be “new.” Before the Atlantic Ocean existed, the world’s land masses were all locked together, in a vast supercontinent called Pangea. As Pangea formed, Africa and Europe slid into the east coast of North America, rippling up an enormous mountain chain similar to today’s Himalayas. Over eons, the jagged, high-altitude peaks were smoothed down to become gentle ridges and valleys, otherwise known as today’s Appalachian Mountains.

The Appalachians are a sinuous zone of rocks stretching from Vermont to Alabama that bear the distinct signature of an ancient continental-scale collision. Most of the rocks have been heated, stretched, and deformed. Formerly flat-lying sedimentary rocks now jut up at an angle like a wrinkle in a carpet, creating long ridgelines. In some cases, older rocks have been heaved up and placed on top of younger rocks, disobeying the normal rules of geology and probably confusing the heck out of early geologists.

The Talladega slate belt is one such example of a geologic reshuffling. This section of rocks moved as much as 75 miles from its original root, sliding inland and overriding younger layers, much like a snowplow lifts older, deeper layers of snow and shoves them on top of fresher, newer layers.

The result was a fortuitous gift to Alabama and southern Georgia, in the form of a deposit of sparkling white marble. In Alabama, the Talladega slate belt contains the Sylacauga Marble, a compilation of layers 8,000 feet thick. The choicest section is called the Gantts Quarry Formation, which beholds pure, fine grained calcite marble. The collision that produced the stone thrust it into near-vertical layers, with veins and swirls of mica minerals folded into the calcite.

 

New life for an old quarry

The white stone drew the attention of Dr. Edward Gantt, a physician and sculptor who opened the first quarry in the area in 1834. Other quarries soon followed and for nearly 200 years, Alabama marble has been used for sculpture, architecture, and industrial applications. The stone was used to build the Supreme Court, the ceiling of the Lincoln Memorial, and Penn Station, among many other projects.

But as with many historical stones, the prosperity of Alabama marble was never assured; and at times its production idled.

In 2013, the stone was revitalized by new investment, a fresh team, and a renewed sense of purpose and energy. A new company was born: Alabama Marble, Mineral & Mining, dubbed AM3 Stone for short. AM3 invested in an inactive quarry, ramping up production once again. For American consumers, the resurgence of Alabama marble brings a new option of a locally-derived stone with in-house fabrication abilities and straightforward domestic shipping.

Alabama marble offers one more, intangible yet important detail: a sense of satisfaction. Emily Dykes is a native Alabaman and the Marketing Director at AM3. “There’s a lot of Alabama pride when it comes to this material,” she says with a broad smile.

The quarry sits just outside Sylacauga, Alabama, dubbed the “Marble City.” Sylacauga celebrates its historic stone with an annual marble festival, and the community members are “champions of the marble” says Dykes.

 

Italian know-how with an American workforce

AM3 Stone is run by an international team that knits together expertise from across the globe “We are a new player in the industry,” says Bintao Qin, Vice President of Operations. The company completed a sparkling-new fabrication facility in 2016 and opened a showroom in Birmingham. Pairing quarrying with fabrication and design services makes the company “a one stop shop,” says Qin.

Giuseppe Telara is AM3’s Business Development Manager; he’s an architect who grew up among the famous “marble mountains” in Carrara, Italy. “I’ve been in this business since I was a kid. My family has been in this business for four generations.” Parts of the AM3 quarry “are like the Calacatta material from my hometown,” he says with reverence. “Alabama marble is a beautiful material.”

Dykes hails from a fine arts and architectural design background, as is evident in her descriptions of the stone: “The color and composition of our stone, the grain of it, it’s so beautiful when cut,” she says. “It’s a work of art within itself.”

The team at AM3 offers no shortage of enthusiasm and ambition as they strive to help this American stone reach its full potential.

 

Italian quality and domestic pricing

Through the ages, Italy has been synonymous with quarrying and using white marble, but today Americans are the main buyers of Italian marble. Telara explains that 70 to 80% of Carrara’s marble is currently being exported to the US.

That arrangement has major drawbacks. Long-distance shipping adds cost and raises the energy footprint, and the faraway supply chain can make lead times long and unpredictable. Furthermore, the high demand for Carrara marble typically means it commands a top price.

Furthermore, the expense and energy footprint of long-distance shipping, and the faraway supply chain can make lead times long and unpredictable.

AM3’s solution to these problems is to invest in a resource that’s closer to the end customer. By developing an American stone for the American market, production times are shorter. “We’re not having to ship from overseas. Everything comes right through us, and it can go out very quickly,” says Dykes.

Telara sings the praises of the merging of the cultures. “We are processing the stone with Italian equipment. Everything we have in the factory is Italian, all the top-of-the-line machinery both in the quarry and in the factory.” To run that machinery, the company trained a new workforce and grew local jobs, bringing simultaneous benefits to the local economy and the end consumer. Because of its local production, Telara says the price point of Alabama marble is considerably less than its Italian countertop, “and the quality is the same.”

With the facility running smoothly, the team’s next step is to spread the word. Dykes explains, “Right now we’re working really hard to get the product out there and let designers across the nation know that this is an option. This is Italian quality at domestic prices,” she says. “We can fill that need.”

 

‘A big push’ for sustainable products

A major advantage of American-made products is they tend to have better environmental footprints compared to imported products. “The environmental regulations here are pretty strong, whereas if you process in other places, it’s not the same,” says Dykes. “We do a good job of making our product as sustainable as possible.”

Dykes sees an increased demand for sustainability coming from the architectural community. “There’s a big push for sustainable products and to build as green as possible,” she says.

The company intends to pursue certification to the Natural Stone Sustainability Standard in the near future, and they’re already upping their game. “We use 98% recycled water in our processing facility and quarry,” says Qin.

Stone that’s not suited for fabrication is crushed and sold for calcium carbonate powder, which can be used to make toothpaste, paint, abrasives, antacids, and an additive in paper. Telara explains, “by using marble power for making paper, they can use less wood for the paper.”

By repurposing more of the quarried material, the company has less waste to dispose of, and an additional product to sell. For both environmental and business reasons, “we try to use everything we can use,” says Qin.

 

Boom in residential projects

The COVID-19 crisis hasn’t stymied the company’s efforts to grow. “We’re a small company but we’re growing, even during the pandemic,” says Qin. “Construction business is actually not bad,” he says. “The residential side is booming during COVID.”

Dykes sums up the pent-up demand for kitchen, bathroom, and other residential work as we wait out the pandemic. “We’re all sort of looking around our houses and saying, ‘hmm what needs to be done here?’”

Meanwhile, Telara keeps his eye on the geology. “We’re getting more into the good material,” he says, as they quarry deeper and find new colors. Because of the collision-style tectonics that created the marble, “the veining is almost vertical, at a 70-degree angle,” explains Telara. He’s pleased with the way the quarrying is taking shape. “The newest blocks are more sound; we’re getting bigger blocks; nicer blocks,” he says.

“The quarry is 10 meters (33 feet) deep right now,” Telara says, and the deposit is estimated to be 400 feet deep. The 50-acre property offers lots of options for expansion “We can expand it and go down at the same time.”

 

‘It’s like Christmas’

A big part of Telara’s job satisfaction has been watching the employees learn new skills and build their sense of pride in their work. “Every time you cut a block on a gangsaw, it’s like Christmas,” he says. “Because you never know. You can see the outside but you never see what’s inside. Sometimes you get the most beautiful block. It’s a big satisfaction when you see it.”

“American people like American materials,” says Telara. “They’re proud of it.” He adds, “The fact that it’s an American material helps a lot. That makes the customers go and look for it, in a big way.”

Dykes nods in agreement. “I’m originally from Alabama, we get a lot of slack for being Alabamans” she says. “It’s such an amazing stone and I’m really proud that I get to be the person to bring that to the rest of the nation.”

More from the American Stones Series