Beneath the Mountain
Beauty lurks underground. Deftly cut into the impassive stone is a large, dark entrance. It gives way to a snaking path, used and maintained
for more than one hundred years, leading miles deep into the belly of Dorset Mountain. Here, far from natural light and in cavernous silence, lies Vermont Danby Quarry, the largest underground marble quarry in the world.
Down the quarry’s vast, endless hallways of smooth marble, titans
of machinery lie dormant, poised
to roar into life. Colossal slabs lean nonchalantly in shadow, waiting to
be shaped. It’s a place of stark contrast. Fear and wonder. Tranquility and industry. Immense beauty and acute danger.
The mountain’s depths are abundant with Danby marble, famed for its quality and durability. But this treasure is not easily extracted. It takes a team of highly skilled quarrymen who risk their lives each day to unearth the marble worthy of America’s iconic memorials and monuments.
It is their labor, rigorous and disciplined, that preserves Danby Quarry’s legacy.
We work underground, so every day brings
a different type of danger. All of us
just want to go
home to our families at the end of the day.
- Ricky Carroll, Mill Manager at Vermont Quarries
The harshest part of this is that I could go to work one day and not come home. That is the reality
of my job.
America was built on hard work. You don't
just all of a sudden have something worthwhile. It takes work to get to that point. It's the in between, the process of getting there. That’s what matters.
