Top picture shows North Carolina state capitol, built
of granite quarried near Raleigh nearly a hundred
years ago. Below is famous Christ Episcopal Church,
in Raleigh, which also is almost a century old. It too,
was built of North Carolina stone, quarried near the
capital city.
North Carotins
!
IHO.M .Murphy To Mantoo”—
state’s popular slogan -
Ids good in the use of North
Carolina building stone. From the
handsome Ml. Airy granite monument
topping Kill Devil hill as a ineinorial
to the Wright brothers, just across the
sound from Manteo, to the lieautiful
blue marble courthouse at Murphy,
public buildings, churches, hotels, edu¬
cational institutions and residences
«•all ulti’iition to the wealth of valuable
stone in this stale.
With the state capitol standing as
ail eliiltii'ittir in it... ....I.!
progri
I he u
native North Caro¬
lina stone the state
needs to wake up a
livo-nt-home pro¬
gram in building.
There is prob¬
ably no state in the
union that has a
greater variety of
stone than North
Carolina, a greater
distribution
о
f
granite and allied
stones or a greater
variety of colors
among the gran¬
ite, according to
H. J. Bryson, state
geologist, a state¬
ment borne out by
other geologist!».
Willi the state
producing prac-
licnlly every type
of building, struc¬
tural and orna¬
mental stone to be
found, including
white, pink and
gray granites;
stone allied to
granite; several
varieties of gneiss;
white, Confederate
gray, mottled, regal
blue and black
marbles; numerous
kinds of dolomite;
quartzite, volcanic
slates, and red and
gray sandstone, one
wonders why con¬
tractors go else¬
where for building
material.
The fact is that whenever architects
and builders consider the use of native
stone in building work they are mot
with a Hood of well organized propa¬
ganda from building-stone companies
from other states, exploiting their
product at the expense of North Caro¬
lina stone.
When it came to selecting the stone
for its great plant Duke University
looked first at homo for material. With
the aid of Dr. .1. L. Stuckey, well
known geologist, there was located in
the slate belt, about two miles from
Hillsboro, the vein of beautifully col¬
ored rock, known to geologists n*
"igneous flows."
Located close to the Southern Rail¬
road and only sixteen miles from the
SOM
К
of our most b< in
churches, hotels,
and residences in
from Kortli Carolii
where for it?
к
tty SI* >
site of building operations, Duke saved
a million or more dollars by buying
and operating its own quarries. Tin-
land on which the quarries are located
was bought from Patrick L. Clayton,
a farmer who bought it about twenty-
eight years before at less than $:$ an
acre or a total cost of $800 and sold it
for around $4.000 and other consider¬
ations.
The stone was found to ho extremely
hard and of many colors, superior in
beauty and solidity to many of the
more widely exploited stones of quar¬
ries out of the state. The colors of
maroon, yellow, brown, blue and gray,
blended into a pleasing time-mellowed
ар|м-п
ranсe in which there is no indi¬
cation of sharp newness. The beauty
of the stone as it has been worked into
tbo handsome buildings of Duke Uni¬
versity is known to thousands who
hove visited the institution.
While the stone had boon used to a
limited extent in some of the old build¬
ings in Hillsboro, it lias taken the
Duke building program to really ad¬
vertise to the public the value of its
home product.
Merely Scratched the Surface
Though the operation of the quarry
has left n vast hole in the hillside, the
great stone face of the quarry seems
only barely scratched by the operation.
In the sheer rook wall geologists read
the interesting story of the rocks mil¬
lions and millions of years old, formed
then- by s<une gigantic and mighty up¬
heavals and volcanic disturbances
when life was just beginning on the
earth, millions of years before the ap¬
pearance of man in Proterozoic or pre-
Cambrian times.
The courthouse at Murphy, in Cher¬
okee County, is a striking example
of the blue marble quarried in that
county, also a notable demonstration
of the pride of the county in its own
product. Blocks 2S feet thick with¬
out a flaw were found in the blue mar¬
ble. There is another quarry not far
distant at Marble in Cherokee, pro-
a
