Rock of Ages Corporation
Rock of Ages Corporation is a granite quarrying and finishing company located in Graniteville, Vermont. It was founded in 1885. The company was one of the cemetery-related businesses profiled in the 2005 PBS documentary A Cemetery Special.[1]
The company employs around 230 people, and the company made a profit of around $800,000 in 2009 on revenues of $21.6 million, up from a loss of more than $2 million in 2008.[2]
On 19 October 2010, Swenson Granite, based in Concord, New Hampshire, announced that it and Rock of Ages had agreed to merge.[2] Swenson paid Rock of Ages shareholders a total of $39 million.[2]
ROAC maintains the world's largest "deep hole" granite quarry.[3][4][5][6][7] The quarry is called the "E. L. Smith Quarry", and the Devonian Barre Granite is mined there. Granite was originally quarried using primitive techniques which implemented hand saws and explosive charges to blast away the "benches" of the quarry. Modern techniques have evolved to include diamond-tipped wire saws and water jets. Visitors to the Rock of Ages factory and gift shop can also watch quarriers in the quarry cutting the granite away from the quarry wall.[8]
Notable works
- United States Korean War Memorial, United Nations Memorial Cemetery, Busan, South Korea – a Frank Gaylord sculpture carved from Barre Granite and dedicated under the auspices of the American Battle Monuments Commission in 2013.[9][10][11]
References
- ↑ PBS.org
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ RoadsideAmerica.com
- ↑ Central-VT.com
- ↑ Vermonter.com
- ↑ LinkVermont.com
- ↑ VermontGuides.com
- ↑ Tours and Activities | Rock of Ages Corporation. Rockofages.com. Retrieved on 2014-04-12.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Korean War Monument at Busan
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
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