Wander the West

Marble, Colorado

	You will find plenty of marble in Marble Colorado

2006

Marble, Colorado is located in Western Colorado, a few miles off of highway 133 in the Crystal River Valley. The town was once the site of the world's largest marble finishing plant, and is located just a few miles from the Yule Marble Quarry. Marble is mostly a ghost town now with around 100 full time residents, but at one time an industrial town with thousands of people. From an interpretive sign on highway 133:

Early Prospectors in the Crystal River Valley were so intent on finding gold and silver that they neglected the area's most precious resource - marble. First noted in 1873, the rich deposits about five miles south of here lay virtually untapped for twenty years. Then coal magnate Charles Osgood entered a block of the stone in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the judges ranked it among the world's finest. The state of Colorado immediately ordered some for its new state capitol building in Denver, and in 1899 the town of Marble - population ninety nine - was incorporated. That same year Osgood formed the Yule Creek White Marble Company, raising hopes that a boom would follow. But the Fuel King had little interest in the enterprise - so little that when he build opulent Cleveholm Manor, he spurned his own stone for marble imported at obscene expense from Carrera, Italy.

Charles Osgood's corporate downfall left the field open for a new marble magnate. Enter Channing Frank Meek, who founded the Colorado Yule Marble Company in 1905. Unlike Osgood, Meek took his Marble seriously, opening a second quarry with the world's largest marble refinery. He also build a much-needed railroad, and that crucial shipping link ignited the market for Marble marble. In 1913, Manhattan builders ordered 1.2 million cubic feet for an early skyscraper, the Equitable Building. Colorado Yule landed an even more prestigious contract in 1916, supplying stone for the Lincoln Memorial. In 1931 the quarry (now owned by a Vermont company) coughed up a one-hundred-ton slab - the largest block of marble ever cut - for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The quarry closed in 1941 and lay dormant until 1990. Two operators have since tried to tap its potential - and return Marble to its past glory.

Marble is mostly just a group of houses and small businesses in the woods now, but parts the old marble mill can still be toured and the towns spectacular mountain setting offers many recreational opportunities. There are a few small inns in town, a gift shop, store, and some backcountry guide services. The Yule Marble Quarry can be accessed via a four-mile dirt road, but this road is considered dangerous so be familiar with off road driving if you plan on making the drive.

The town of Redstone is just five miles down the Crystal River Valley from Redstone, and both can be enjoyed in a single day of travel.

Click here to view the Marble Colorado photo gallery

- Aaron Walton