Rock of Ages, Barre

You can stand and watch quarriers cut granite off the wall of the world's largest deep hole quarry.

The Rock of Ages Corporation has been quarrying and finishing granite at Graniteville, Vermont, since 1885, and the US Geological Survey lists its quarry in Washington County as a granite producer. The pit itself is called the E. L. Smith Quarry, and what comes out of it is Devonian Barre granite.

The method has changed completely and the product has not. Granite was originally taken out with hand saws and explosive charges, blasting away the benches of the quarry. Modern work uses diamond-tipped wire saws and water jets. Visitors to the factory and gift shop can watch the cutting happening on the quarry wall, which is a rare thing to be allowed to see at an active industrial site.

The business behind it has been bought and sold repeatedly in the last two decades. The company employed around 230 people and made a profit of roughly 800,000 dollars in 2009 on revenues of 21.6 million, having lost more than 2 million the year before. In October 2010 Swenson Granite of Concord, New Hampshire announced that the two firms had agreed to merge, paying Rock of Ages shareholders a total of 39 million dollars. In September 2016 Polycor of Quebec City acquired both Swenson Granite and Rock of Ages, becoming the largest producer of marble and granite in North America, and taking in the Canadian division at Stanstead, Quebec, on the Vermont border.

Barre granite ends up in serious places. The company's work includes the United States Korean War Memorial. It was also one of the cemetery-related businesses profiled in the 2005 PBS documentary A Cemetery Special, which tells you what most of this stone is actually for.

This is a working quarry, so the viewing is arranged and the pit is not. Go through the visitor centre.