Marbleous Marble, Colorado

The little town of Marble, Colorado has had a big role in the construction of some of our country’s most hallowed monuments and important buildings. While Colorado gained initial fame and wealth for its mining of precious metals, Marble’s mines provided marble for America’s monuments and memorials. Over 500 train cars of marble, cut and polished in the mill near Marble, were sent to Washington D.C. for the building of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922. Marble also supplied the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, completed in 1932. Several buildings in the West were built with Marble marble, including the interior of the Daniel and Fisher Tower and the interior of Colorado’s State Capitol. Many veterans’ headstones have also been crafted with Marble marble. Marble’s mines have gone in and out of business since the boom days of the early to mid-Twentieth Century. In the 1980’s, you could walk around the old mine site and see huge discarded pieces of beautiful white marble. Today, Marble’s mine is once again open and producing marble. To see more photographs of Marble, search our Digital Photographs. To view books on Marble in our collection, search our catalog. To find out more about the photographs on the left, click here, here, and here.