Tennessee marble

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Tennessee marble is a type of crystalline limestone found mainly in East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Long-honored by architects and builders for its pink gray and polished ease, it has been used in the construction of famous buildings and monuments throughout the United States and Canada, including the National Art Gallery and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, Minnesota State Capitol, as well as parts of the United States Capitol in Washington, Grand Central Terminal in New York, and Union Station in Toronto. Tennessee Marble achieved such popularity by the end of the 19th century that Knoxville, the finishing and distribution center of the main rock, was known as "The Marble City."

While Tennessee marble is not properly marbled, its crystal properties lend a strong resemblance to marble, especially when polished. This rock is in the Ordovician Order's rock band belt known as Holston Formation, and was excavated mainly in the territory of Knox, Blount, Loudon, Union, and Hawkins. While pink is Tennessee's most famous marble color, it also appears in gray, dark cedar ("cedar"), and various shades.

The use of Tennessee marble declined after World War II, when cheaper building materials became widely available. Currently there are only six active Tennessee marble mines, all operated by Tennessee Marble Company. The rock was recently used on the floor of the United States Capitol Visitor Center, and for the 170-ton "First Amendment" tablet that adorns the Newseum Washington facade.

Video Tennessee marble

Geologi

Kejadian

Tennessee Marble is found in Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley Province, a series of long ridges and valleys far from the Blue Ridge Mountains and Cumberland Plateau. The Holston Formation, in which Tennessee marble is found, occurs in a series of belts that follow the natural folds and errors of Ridges-and-Valleys. While these belts can be up to 75 miles long (121 km), they are rarely more than a few miles wide. In 1911, the Tennessee State Geological Survey identified six belts of the main Holston Formation containing Tennessee marble: Luttrell, Black Oak, Concord, Knoxville, Bays Mountain, and the French Wide belt. The seventh belt, Galbraith in Hawkins County, is considered an extension of Black Oak.

The Luttrell belt, the most western part of the Holston Formation belt, extends along Copper Ridge from Beaver Creek in Fountain City northeast to Galbraith Springs (about 10 miles (16 km) west of Rogersville) in Hawkins County. The Black Oak belt stretches along Black Oak Ridge from Monroe County to the Corryton area just north of Knox County. The Concord belt, one of the most heavily mined, stretches from Sweetwater through Knox County to Strawberry Plains. The Knoxville belt, also very excavated, extends from southeast Sweetwater to Ruggles Ferry (east of Knoxville) in Knox. The Mountain Bays belt is found along the southwestern tip of Bays Mountain in southern Knox County, and stretches north of Blount County. The French Broad Belt is a U-shaped belt found at the confluence of the River Luas and Holston France ("Fork-River").

Litology

While true marble is metamorphic, Tennessee marble is a sediment, and is therefore classified as limestone. Tennessee marble is formed from bryozoan accumulation and other primordial sea life forms 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician period. Even when polished, Tennessee marble retains the fossil texture, with bryozoan fossils and crinoid fossils being the most common. A feature seen from Tennessee marble is the presence of horizontal gray or jagged black lines, or "stylolites." Known as "crowfeet" by quarrymen, this form comes from the remaining insoluble material left over from the natural lime dissolution process.

The most famous colors of Tennessee marble are pink, gray, and cedar, but are also found in blue, yellow, and beige. Along with the aesthetic colors, the builders preferred the stone because of its durability, its ease to polish it, and the fact that it was barely stained. Marble Tennessee is also easily converted into lime, and lime companies in the mid-20th century sometimes set up kilns near the dead mines for this purpose.

Maps Tennessee marble

History

In the early 18th century, Tennessee marble was being harvested for construction purposes, especially for Ramsey House on the outskirts of Knoxville and "Old Stone House" near modern Friendsville. Visitors to East Tennessee reported the existence of marble beds in the area as early as the 1810s, and the state geologist Gerard Troost gave a broad explanation of the Tennessee marble deposit in the 1831 report to the Tennessee General Assembly. The Rogersville Marble Company, founded in 1838, produces monuments and furniture from Tennessee marble extracted from a mine in Hawkins County. Marble Hall, a house built by the company's director, Orville Rice, contains many elements of Tennessee's marble interior, and acts as an exhibition venue for the company.

In 1850, Governor William Trousdale chose Rogersville Marble Company marble as a representative stone of the state for the construction of the Washington Monument. During the same period, marble from Hawkins County, either from the Rice mine or the southern mines of Rogersville, was used in the US Capitol expansion project (William Dougherty, construction supervisor for the Washington Monument, was instrumental in acquiring marble). Transporting blocks dug out of the area posed a major challenge to these early companies. Tim Mule, often led by local African American businessmen, brings blocks to the Holston River, where they are loaded onto a flatboat and transported downstream.

In the early 1850s, at least two marble mines were operating in Knox County, one of which provides marble for parts of the Tennessee State Capitol. The arrival of the railroads in the area, which is the predecessor of East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railway, provided a major boost for the industry, and helped Knox County take over Hawkins as the region's premier mining and production center. The industry was also assisted by the infusion of the northern capital in the years after the Civil War.

In 1873, the federal architect Alfred B. Mullett used Tennessee marble for the Knoxville Post and Customs Office, sparking national curiosity on the rock. Mullett acquired marble from the mine in Forks-of-the-River, where Holston and the French rivers merged to form the Tennessee River east of Knoxville. After the building was complete, businessman George Ross and several colleagues organized Knoxville Marble Company to take over the mine's control, and provided marble for the construction of Customs House designed by Mullett in St. Louis. Louis in the mid-1870s. Following Ross's death, his son, John M. Ross, became president of the company.

In 1882, eleven Tennessee marble mines operate in Knox County only. This number has doubled in a decade, as the increasing popularity of Neoclassical architecture brought about a rapid increase in demand for marble. Knoxville, head of the financial and industrial production center, was known as "The Marble City" during this period and even included marble stone mining on the Knoxville flag. The Concord Community, located west of Knoxville, became a major marble-digging center, where blocks were moved from boat to train car to be taken out of the area. In 1885, Concord was home to ten companies dealing with marble.

Ross eventually sold the Forks-of-the-River mine to WHL based in Baltimore. Evans Company, which has opened a large marble finishing factory in Knoxville. Ross then bought a mine in the Home Island area in South Knoxville. In 1898, he sold the mine (later known as "Mead Quarry") to the Republic Marble Company, which had operated a mine near Concord and Luttrell over the previous decade. The Republic was founded by Knoxville Iron Company executive William S. Mead (1833-1908), and at that time managed by his son, Frank S. Mead (1864-1936). Although the Republic bought Ross's business interests and came to be known as "Ross-Republic," John M. Ross continued to operate independently, unlocking quarry ("Ross Quarry") on land adjacent to Mead Quarry. The Ross Quarry provides marble for J.P. Morgan Library in New York in the early 1900s.

Knoxville Banker John J. Craig (1820-1892) began buying excavation properties in the 1870s, and founded his own marble company, John J. Craig and Company, in 1878. After his death, his son John J. Craig, Jr.. (1860-1904), took over the company, and helped set up the Tennessee Producers Marble Company, which operates a termination plant that serves excavations in the Knox, Blount, and Hawkins regions. John J. Craig III (1885-1944), who became president of the company after the death of his father, set up a large finishing plant, Candoro Marble Works, in South Knoxville in 1914. James B. Jones, former employee of Craig's company, founded the Gray-Knox Marble Company, which will build a large factory on Sutherland Avenue in Knoxville.

In 1908, Tennessee was ranked third in the state in marble production, behind only Vermont and Georgia. While eighty percent of the marble excavated in the state is used in furniture and interior decoration, it is best known as a monumental building material. The monuments and buildings constructed from Tennessee marble during the early 20th century include the St. Louis Public Library. Paul in Minnesota, Richard C. Lee US Courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut, and Firemen's Memorial in Manhattan.

The emergence of modern architecture and preference for concrete use, coupled with the occurrence of the Great Depression, led to a decline in the marble industry in Tennessee in the late 1920s. The rock experienced a brief resurgence in the 1930s because the Federal New Deal's construction project encouraged the use of locally dug building materials. Buildings completed during this period include National Art Gallery (Western Building), Post Office Knoxville, and Tennessee Supreme Court Building in Nashville.

Sculptor Jack Rich describes Tennessee marble as "an excellent stone carving," though hard to work because of its violence. Two famous Tennessee marble statues, E.C. lions Potter, "Patience" and "Fortitude," stand outside the entrance of the Main Library of the New York Public Library. The Piccirilli Brothers also worked with stones, especially creating a tripod entry at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, and several statues at the USS Maine National Monument base in New York. The Italian-born sculptor Albert Milani (1892-1977), who works at Candoro Marble Works in Knoxville, creates many works using Tennessee marble, including four hawks over the Post Office of Knoxville and the "World History" relief at Pennsylvania State Capitol. Other famous Tennessee marble works include the burial of Frances Rich ("Spirit of Nursing") at Arlington National Cemetery; The Fountain of Memorial Slocum by Bruno Louis Zimm at Tompkins Square Park New York; Joseph Emile Renier's Pomona at Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina; and a statue of Cliff Fragua from Pueblo Po'pay's leader in the National Sculpture Hall.

One of the most famous paintings by Knoxville artist Lloyd Branson, Hauling Marble , was inspired by the Tennessee marble industry.

Products of Tompkins-Kiel Marble Company Stone Catalog

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