The Yangshan Quarry has been worked from the time of the Six Dynasties, the local limestone being used for construction of buildings, walls, and statues in and around Nanjing.

[4] In 1405, Hongwu's son, the Yongle Emperor, ordered the cutting of a giant stele in this quarry, for use in the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum of his deceased father.

After most of the stone-cutting work had been done, the architects realized that moving stones that big from Yangshan to Ming Xiaoling, let alone installing them there in a proper way, would not be physically possible.

[6] The three unfinished stele components remain in Yangshan Quarry to this day, only partially separated from the solid rock of the mountain.

[11] In the centuries since the giant stele project was abandoned, a number of Ming, Qing, and modern authors visited the site and left accounts of it.

[3] The poet Yuan Mei (1716 – 1797) expressed his feelings in "The Song of Hongwu's Great Stone Tablet" (洪武大石碑歌), which concludes with "one hundred thousand camels could not move it!"

[1][12] A small theme park called the Ming Culture Village (明文化村, Míng Wénhuà Cūn) was constructed at the entrance to the site; as of 2011, it has a stage, children's rides, and various history-themed amusements.