Marble, Colorado

Marble Mill Site Park

The site of a defunct mill, that once supplied marble for the construction of the Lincoln Memorial.

This entry is a stub

Help improve Atlas Obscura by expanding Marble Mill Site Park with additional information or photos.

Marble Mill Site Park’s gleaming white marble walls are now covered in spruce and aspen; giving the once industrious worksite the mysterious feeling of a Peter Jackson movie set. The walls, columns, and buildings made of white marble stand in stark contrast compared to the forest around them. There are historical markers around the park to teach visitors about the rise and fall of the once-thriving mill. In its heyday, the mill was the largest marble mill in the world.

Yule marble, the name for the marble produced here, is very fine-grained and pure. It rivals Italian Carrara marble in both grain and purity. The marble has been used in many historic buildings and monuments across the United States including cladding the Lincoln Memorial, the Equitable Building in New York, the Denver Post Office, and the Montana State Capitol building.

One of the mill’s most prestigious contracts was collecting the stone for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1930. A 124 ton stone, the largest stone cut to date, was removed from the mountain and took over a year to pry from the mountain. The stone was cut down to 56 tons before being shipped to Vermont where it was carved and finished in 1932.

When you’re done exploring the ruins, you can walk to several local galleries where you can find beautiful marble sculptures.