Blount's royal pink marble featured in Washington, D.C.

A new museum, the Newseum which is opening Friday, April 11, in Washington, D. C., has received some national publicity but its main local significance is that it features tons of world famous royal pink marble from Blount County.

The 250,000-square-foot, $450 million, seven-level museum blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology. A 40-by-22 foot high definition media screen will offer breaking news and documentaries in the 90-foot-high atrium.

Highlight of the Newseum is a 170-ton, 74-foot high, 52-foot wide marble tablet on the face of the building. On this tablet of Friendsville marble, the words of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States granting freedom of speech and assembly are spelled out in letters 13 1/2 inches high.

While only 2,000 net cubic footage (175 tons) was needed for this wall, a total of 10,000 cubic feet (875 tons) of stone was quarried in Friendsville in order to recover the large panels. The tablet is projected about two feet from the building, giving the viewer the look of a page of paper.

Charles L. Overby, former Nashville newspaperman and chief executive officer, described the Newseum as a unique blend of fun and inspiration with something for everyone - history, games, films, big screens, photos and major historical artifacts from around the world.

The marble for the Newseum project was quarried and fabricated by Tennessee Valley Marble, LLC and owners Tom and Mary White before they sold the firm recently to Tennessee Marble Co. and owners Monica Gawet and Gus Zacharias. Tennessee Marble owns and operates four quarries, two in Blount and two in adjacent counties.

This royal pink marble, so-named by the Endsley Brothers who were Friendsville quarry operators of the last century, cannot be found any place else on earth. Because of the cheaper cost of mining, Italian marble is often used more widely in buildings in the United States.

However, thanks to the Whites and to Monica and Gus, royal pink is seeing increased usage.

Located on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the National Gallery, another building featuring Tennessee marble on the exterior, the Newseum is about midway between the White House and the Capitol, a prime location. It is on the last large developable site on the avenue.

Since 1993, pink marble is back on the map. Major projects include restoration and renovation of the interior of the National Archives, Grand Central Terminal in New York City with the largest of these projects being the interior stone for the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. It consumed 25,000 square feet (nearly 2,200 tons) of Friendsville pink and 6,000 cubic feet of Tennessee cedar marble, furnished by Tennessee Marble Co. from Blount County.

In addition to the exterior of the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, D. C., area projects include the East Tennessee Historical Building, Knoxville Convention Center, the Howard Baker Center now under construction and interior projects such as Tower Oaks in Maryland, Maryville Municipal Building and UT Law Library.

The marble belt in Blount County, part of the Holston marble bed, is about three miles wide, running from the Little Tennessee River (Tellico Lake) near the former town of Morganton, south of Greenback, 16 miles northeast to Louisville. By the late 1950s, at least 24 quarries had been operated in that area and most were closed.

The first quarry was opened soon after the Civil War by E. H. Copley who came from New York state. In 1883, the Juniata Marble Company began operations. It employed 35 men and had equipment for sawing marble into blocks. In 1889, the Cliff Quarry at Louisville was reported to contain 20 to 30 varieties of marble.

In the early years, marble was shipped by water, usually down the Tennessee River to Chattanooga where it was sent by rail to the metropolitan areas. In 1902, John J. Craig built a rail siding connecting to the L&N, three miles away.

In more recent years the Endsley and Hamil families and, beginning in 1896, the Craig name have been prominent when Friendsville marble was mentioned.
Blount County and Tennessee are usually among the top three sources nationally for dimension marble used for building.

Stones from Tennessee may also be found in the Washington Monument. Some 36 years in construction, the monument to the first president stood as a “stump in a stockyard” when the Civil War interrupted work.

The states, cities, churches, civic and fraternal organizations were invited to contribute stones honoring Washington for display on the interior walls.

Among the three stones from the state of Tennessee which we were able to trace, the earliest received was from Nashville sometime after Jan. 15, 1850. It was shipped to Washington via Baltimore and may have been carved by “a William Strickland,” the architect of the Tennessee state capitol who is buried within its walls. It is at the 40-foot level of the stairwell and is of dark limestone, four feet by two feet in dimension.

The Tennessee stone was received May 20, 1851, and is of the same size and is of variegated pink marble. The inscription on it is “Tennessee - The Federal Union, It must be Preserved.”

A Hawkins County stone of highly polished brown and white marble is inscribed using the same techniques. It is safe to assume that these two stones were quarried at the same place and more than likely the carving was done by the same person.
In 1982, a new “Pope Stone” was given the National Park Service to replace a white marble stone sent in 1854 by Pope Pius IX. The original stone apparently was stolen from its storage place on the Mall by members of the Know-Nothings, a political party hostile to Catholics and foreign-born Americans. It is believed the stone was dumped in the Potomac River.

This added information is background for a suggestion. It would seem fitting for Blount County to at this late date donate a similar block of world famous royal pink marble from Friendsville to be added in the stairwell area of the Washington Monument. It is worth investigating, as it seems likely that might be practical.