A Lasting Impact

"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for.

Let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them: 'See! This our Fathers did for us!'"

-John Ruskin as quoted in the Vermont Marble Co.'s Modern Memorials in Marble

In many ways, the decline of the Vermont Marble Company and the general marble industry in Vermont cannot be attributed to any one factor.

Architectural style trends changed and buildings could be made cheaper than masonry as the 20th century progressed; demand for marble declined sharply with the Great Depression in the 1930s, and it never reached production levels equivalent to its peak following the company's shift to wartime work in the 1940s. In some ways, competition from lower priced Italian marbles also contributed to the abandonment of many quarry operations in the 1970s.

The company's facilities were purchased by OMYA in 1976, though the company moved its headquarters to Ohio in 2007. Though not at the same scale as during the Vermont Marble Co.'s peak, marble does continue to be quarried in various parts of Vermont today, including the world's largest underground quarry in Danby, covering 25 acres.

Sign driving into Proctor, VT (2025)

According to the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation's page on marble, "Crushed stone ranks second in terms of value in Vermont’s mineral commodities. Limestone is the primary rock quarried, followed by marble and granite...Finely crushed marble, or calcium carbonate, is used in many everyday products. Crushed marble that is of very high quality is used in products such as anti-acids, tooth pastes, gum, and most other foods that have calcium added."

Did you know?

Though the Vermont Marble Co.'s recognizability - especially in areas outside of the marble valley - has waned since its closure more than fifty years ago, many Americans have likely interacted with a small everyday piece of the Vermont Marble Co.'s legacy; the Lincoln Memorial, whose building is made of marble from the Vermont Marble Co.'s Colorado Yule quarry, is featured on the back of each penny made from 1959 to 2008!

The Community Today

Although the Vermont Marble Company ceased to exist by the 1970s, the impact left on the communities of the Vermont marble belt is all but lost. Street signs with once significant names of the industry can still be found throughout West Rutland, Rutland, and Proctor.

Perhaps more interesting than anything else is the everyday use of stone and marble despite the pomp and circumstance sometimes surrounding the use of the material on other occasions. How fascinating to think the very same stone used for the Jefferson Memorial and parts of the Supreme Court building makes up a decent number of ordinary West Rutland house foundations or their public library.

One of many marble foundations on a house in West Rutland, VT

West Rutland High School

Old Marble Savings Bank in Rutland, VT

Saint Dominic's Roman Catholic Church in Proctor, VT

Saint Bridget's Church in West Rutland, VT

Marble fire department building in Proctor, VT

West Rutland Public Library

Boys and Girls Club in Rutland, VT

"Nonnie's Deli" as part of the old marble mill buildings Middlebury, VT

Vermont state capitol building in Montpelier, VT

To understand more about how things have changed over time in West Rutland, see Historic Maps.

To see photographs today compared with historic photographs, see Then and Now.

All of the photographs above were taken by Claire Puckhaber in 2025.

References

Modern Marble Memorials. Proctor, VT: Vermont Marble Co., 1920.

Pluskota, Kaitlin. To Build on the Past: A Foundational Database of the Vermont Marble Company Archives. (Masters Thesis). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 2015.

For more resources, see the About page.

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