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Roughly 50 years ago, sculptor Frank Gaylord arrived in Barre, Vermont. He, like many before and after him, came to Barre because of the granite. Fifty years later Gaylord has finished his work with granite, but his legacy, the sculptures that he created from this granite, will continue to serve as a testament to his life work.
Go to almost any town or city in America and the chances are that if you look hard enough you’ll find a piece of the Barre, Vermont area. Many statues, monuments, headstones and buildings across the country are made from granite that has been taken from Barre’s quarries or shaped in its manufacturing facilities. A drive through the Barre area quickly makes one realize that the granite industry is a very important part of this region. Granite sheds, sculptor’s studios, quarries and piles of imperfect granite from quarries, called grout piles, are scattered throughout this area. While other towns that were once known for their granite industries have closed their quarries, Barre’s granite based economy continues to be rock solid.
 Ask anyone in the area who works with granite why their industry has continued to prosper and they’ll tell you that it’s the quality of the Barre granite. Barre’s hills have been blessed with a high grade of granite that has a uniform color that sets it apart from almost all of the others. "It’s a very pretty stone and it’s just about the right color for sculpting," says Todd Paton, Director of Tourism for the Rock of Ages Corp. and a two term board of directors member of the Vermont Granite Museum of Barre. "Sculptors really prize that particular gray. It is a light color and yet it’s deep enough to stand out." Master sculptor Jerry Williams of Barre Sculpture Studios agrees "It’s our standard. It is the most consistently predictable granite that you can get and it’s sort of a medium as far as hardness goes for granite. Barre’s got this uniformity to it you where you know what your into when you start it, there’s no surprises. In some of the others you might run into black streaks or things that come up in weird places. You don’t usually run into that with the Barre granite." Besides the even texture and color, the stone is also very strong and sheds water better than many granites.
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