Incorporated in 1887, purchased and significantly reorganized in 1896, and expanded by merger in 1902 and thereafter, the company operated quarries principally in Woodbury, Vermont, but its headquarters and stone-finishing facilities were located in nearby Hardwick.

With the growing national economy and civic and community pride spurring the construction of many granite public buildings, the company flourished in the years around 1910.

[4][2]: 27  The increasing affluence of the United States in the 1880s and 1890s created a market for marble and granite that sparked the development of the industry in northern Vermont.

[8]: 232  In addition, the northern stone had greater compressive strength than Barre's, making it preferable for construction of larger, heavier structures such as buildings, bridges, and mausoleums.

The quarry yielded a supply of large, defect-free slabs of uniformly-grained, medium-gray granite, which were well-adapted for building.

[8]: 230 The increase in demand for architectural granite ran up against bottlenecks in the supply chain, particularly in the transportation of quarried stone to cutting houses.

[18] Holden's brother, Daniel, was assigned to the quarry and set about modernizing it; the new owners quickly installed two 75-ton derricks.

[8]: 230 [7] After both Hardwick and Woodbury declined to help fund the completion of the H&W RR, Messrs. Holden and Leonard bought enough shares in the railroad to insure its construction to the quarries.

People in Woodbury, especially, were concerned with this shift of control, but the railroad gave assurances of equal treatment of all local granite companies, and agreed to provide free switch connections in its first year.

[18][7] In addition, the ability to transport heavy machinery to the quarries allowed the cutting of larger blocks of stone, which could be taken away by the railroad.

[6] While the WGC had previously sold rough quarry blocks, Holden, Leonard, and Bickford chose to expand into manufacturing finished building granite.

An experienced producer of finished granite for both monumental and building uses, he brought stonecutting know-how to the partnership;[7] Holden and Leonard were silent partners in this enterprise as well.

[16] Bickford served as general manager of the company and directed the construction of an important granite finishing facility in Hardwick.

With the confidence and backing of his father-in-law, Bickford was able to make the needed investments to undertake and complete execute large projects.

[8]: 231 According to historian Paul Wood, the company's name was made when it won the contract to provide finished granite for the new Pennsylvania State Capitol building in 1903.

[21]: 10  That year, the company published a booklet of photos of "some of the buildings and monuments" built with its stone, opposite accolades from architects, contractors, and owners.

[26] By 1917, the company had supplied the granite for seven state capitol buildings: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Michigan, Iowa, Idaho, and Kansas.

[7] Recognizing the importance of carved stone (as opposed to simply cut blocks and shapes), in 1906 the company built a shed to be occupied by carvers and sculptors alone.

By 1910, George Bickford had recruited Frederick A. Purdy, an established sculptor in the Midwest, to come to Hardwick and take charge of all of the company's carving business, likely as an independent contractor.

In 1911, the electric lights in the village began to flicker at night; an investigation blamed the municipal generating station and proposed damming a nearby creek to provide a steady supply of water.

Fearful of the company's influence, the "old guard" of the village allied with the smaller granite operators, and a purchase option was struck from the management contract.

The company owned or controlled each of the elements of the chain needed to produce and deliver its product: quarries, the quarry railroad, and cutting plants, as well as the water rights, hydropower, and steam electric generating plants to power them, timberlands and a sawmill, a bank, piece-setting crews, and branch sales offices in New York, Chicago, and Washington.

[8]: 233 That same year, the company won a contract to build the Forest Lawn Memorial Park mausoleum in Maplewood, Minnesota.

The showpiece of this structure is a 20-foot (6 m) wide bas-relief carving of the Last Supper in the style of Leonardo da Vinci's painting in the pediment.

[27]: 6  The work was carved in four sections, which were crated, shipped, and installed in the front of the building between two smaller side pieces.

[7] The final blow was the Great Depression,[5] which saw a collapse in the economy in general, but in the market for luxury goods (such as mausoleums) in particular.

In 1935, the Woodbury Granite Company closed its operations and sold its finishing plant and its quarry facilities to John B.

The building was a total loss because granite sheds were built almost entirely of wood; once a fire became established, it was nearly impossible to extinguish.

[34][35] Thanks to a revival of interest in granite furnishings, particularly in residential use, the Woodbury quarry (Latitude 44.4392°, Longitude -72.39391° (WGS84)[36]) produces about 500,000 cubic feet (14,000 m3) of stone a year.

[28]: 117 Burlington Station, Galesburg, Illinois Union Station, Memphis, Tennessee Union Station, Washington, D.C. Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, New York Syracuse University Gymnasium, Syracuse, New York Kirby Hall of Civil Rights, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania East High School, Des Moines, Iowa High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan High School, Omaha, Nebraska City Hall Square Building, Chicago, Illinois Flower Memorial, Watertown, New York Governor Page Monument, Hyde Park, Vermont Lowry Memorial, Minneapolis, Minnesota Memorial Archway, Port Huron, New York Memorial Building, Hardwick, Vermont Museum of Fine Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota National Museum, Washington, D.C. Navy Memorial, Vicksburg, Mississippi Pendergast Memorial, Case Park, Kansas City, Missouri Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, Princeton, Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, Wichita, Kansas Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Indiana[15] Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Bloomington, Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Scranton, Pennsylvania Soldiers Monument, Ashtabula, Ohio Soldiers Monument, Manchester, Vermont Boundary Channel Bridge, Washington, D.C.[39] Forest Lawn Mausoleum, Maplewood, Minnesota State Memorial Building, Topeka, Kansas (base) Church of the Immaculate Conception, Minneapolis, Minnesota Pro-Cathedral, Minneapolis, Minnesota Carnegie Library, Syracuse, New York Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut Homeopathic Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Hotel Pontchartrain, Detroit, Michigan National Hotel, Rochester, New York Harry Payne Whitney Residence, New York, New York Mandell Residence, Boston, Massachusetts Mullane Residence, New York, New York Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Washington, D.C. Notes References