My first experience with granite quarries goes back to my junior high and high school days while growing up in Maine. During the hot summer months I would hop on my bike and ride a few miles over rolling hills, and one very steep one, to the old granite quarries in Hallowell. The thrill of jumping off cliffs that were anywhere from 40 to 70 feet high into the deep water below could not be matched by the areas many lakes, streams and rivers. The water in these quarries was also generally cooler than those other bodies of water, a big plus on particularly hot days.

While working on a story about the decline of family dairy farms in Northern New England, I happened to drive through Barre, Vermont. From my car I noticed the tall derricks used for removing granite blocks from the quarries atop one of the area’s hills. This reminded me of those days spent swimming in the Hallowell quarries and I started thinking that a story about this areas still vibrant granite industry might be interesting. Soon I started searching on the internet for information about granite related industries and writing down ideas for photos and a story outline. After this I drove to Barre a couple times to get a better feel for the area and find out where the granite shops and quarries were located.

One of the first people that I contacted about getting photos and arranging interviews was Todd Paton from the Rock of Ages Corporation. Without Paton’s help this story would have a very different appearance and quite frankly may not have been done at all. I considered photos of area quarriers at work inside a quarry a necessity if this was going to be a story about those Barre people who work with granite. Rock of Ages runs both of the active quarries in the area, and their help in getting these photos would be paramount. Fortunately Paton was able to get these arrangements made.

Going down into the 600 foot deep E.L. Smith Quarry was definitely a highlight of doing this story. It’s the first and only time that I’ve been to the bottom of a functioning quarry. As we headed toward the bottom in a gondola I looked at the layers of cuts along the quarry walls, representing years of work, and couldn’t help wondering what was going on in the country when some of those cut lines were made. At the bottom there was a flurry of activity. Men were splitting granite, drilling into granite, marking the granite for cuts and cleaning up granite waste from the quarrying process. Prioritizing what was most important and what would make a good picture had to be done quickly, I was given just 20 minutes to get the photos I needed.

The only time that the gondolas are hooked up is during at the start and end of the daily shift. Between this period the gondolas are unhooked from the cable that raises and lowers them, then the cable is used to remove blocks of granite from the quarry or move equipment around. Going to the bottom of the quarry to get photos required reattaching a gondola to take me down and then back up again, taking a cable out of service for the period of time that I was getting photos. They wanted to get the cable back into service as soon as possible, therefore my shooting time was limited.

Rock of Ages also gave me some excellent access to their production plant. There I shot several series of photos of sculptors, granite cutters and various types of high tech granite cutting and sanding equipment. On top of all this Todd Paton was also an invaluable source of information about the history of Barre’s granite industry and people to contact to find out about other aspects of it.

Sculptor Jerry Williams, owner of Barre Sculpture Studios, is another person who was a key to bringing this story to life. Jerry invited me to come by his studio whenever I was in the area and gave me a lot of great information about the art and business of being a sculptor. He also shared a lot of opinions and provided insight on the present day granite industry in the area. One of my favorite photos from this story was of him blowing a layer of granite dust off from a monument that he was working on at the time. Jerry also introduced me to Russ Kaufman, who is relatively new to sculpting, and Frank Gaylord. Gaylord told me fascinating stories about the process that he went through to get the commission to sculpt the soldiers that are part of the Korean War Memorial in Washington and what he put into sculpting these soldiers.

Another facet of this story that I greatly enjoyed was just driving around the area and discovering where things are or once were. The granite grout piles were one of those discoveries. These pretty much jumped right out at me as I was exploring the areas where the old quarries were. Most of the blocks in these piles were the length of a person and about half that in width. The piles themselves, which resemble small crumbling pyramids, are of various sizes and at the top of some of them it is obvious that they are spots where area kids and young adults go to party. The snowmobile trail that I followed to some of the grout piles also led to some old quarries. I later found out that one of these is used as a source of water for part of the area. Other quarries are more difficult to find or are on clearly marked private property, making them inaccessible.

The only drawback to shooting "Granite Capital" was that the photo equipment was often subjected to conditions that are less than ideal. When shooting right next to tools that pound and grind granite, it is inevitable that some of the granite dust will get on the photo equipment. I found myself wiping down the equipment fairly often to prevent the dust from working its way inside the gear. Most of this dust is sucked out of the air by ventilation pipes and ducts that are present in all work areas, but some dust inevitably gets on the equipment. There were also a couple of less than gentle collisions between granite and gear while climbing over granite in the grout piles and up and down the walls of a quarry. Everything made it through without breaking, I just wouldn’t want to use the gear like that on a daily basis.

As with most stories, there were a few more things that I would liked to have touched upon that had to be left out because the story had reached its intended length. For instance Barre has several manufacturers of tools that the granite industry uses across the world for everything from sculpting to splitting granite. Barre also has a growing granite related tourist industry. Currently Rock of Ages brings in much of this business, taking tour groups to see its active and inactive quarries along with its production facility. A granite museum that is being constructed in one of Barre’s old granite sheds is also nearing completion and should attract even more tourists to the area. I also would like to have added a bit more about some of the area’s cemeteries and the statues and monuments found in them. Fortunately a great deal of this information is available on the internet should someone like to find out more.

It would be very easy to do a series of stories about some of the topics discussed in "Granite Capital." Barre’s sculptors, granite cutters and fabricators, quarries and quarry workers are all interesting groups worthy of individual stories. I decided to take a look at all of these groups and try to fit them into a story that was not too long or too short. Ultimately I think "Granite Capital" will give a good feel for the flavor of the area’s granite industry and the people who work in it.