The Woodbury Granite Company (WGC) was a producer of rough and finished granite products. Incorporated in 1887, purchased and significantly reorganized in 1896, and expanded by merger in 1902 and thereafter, the company operated quarries principally in Woodbury, Vermont, but its headquarters and stone-finishing facilities were located in nearby Hardwick. Beginning as a quarrier and seller of rough stone, the company expanded into the business of finishing cut stone and grew from there. It made its name as a supplier of architectural (structural) granite, and grew to become the United States' largest producer, supplying the stone for many notable buildings, including several state capitols, numerous post offices, and many office buildings.
With the growing national economy and civic and community pride spurring the construction of many granite public buildings, the company flourished in the years around 1910. Changes in architectural styles and in building techniques during the following years greatly harmed the market for architectural granite, and the company's coarser-grained stone could not compete with competitors' finer-grained granite for carving monuments and gravestones, nor could the company compete with the established actors in that market. The company went into decline, which was exacerbated by the Great Depression, and ceased operations in 1935.
Background
The Green Mountains of Vermont have long been known for the quantity and quality of their granite, marble, and slate, but Vermont's remoteness, transportation problems, and difficulties in carving the hard stone (in the case of granite), largely prevented the development of a cut stone industry. In the early 19th century, Vermont granite was used locally for building. Originally, granite was collected from exposed outcrops and "boulder quarries"; only later did it become necessary to cut stone from the ground. The early granite industry in New England was dominated by coastal companies, which were able to ship their products by water. This situation lasted until the middle of the 19th century, when some marble quarries were opened in the Hardwick area. The increasing affluence of the United States in the 1880s and 1890s created a market for marble and granite that sparked the development of the industry in northern Vermont. The first "granite shed" (stone trimming and finishing facility) was completed in Hardwick in 1870. Granite quarries were opened on Robeson Mountain (Vermont's largest deposit of building granite, with a deposit measuring some 2 × 4 miles (4 × 7.2 km)) in nearby Woodbury in the 1870s, but transportation limitations prevented much development of the industry.
The construction of the Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad (later the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad) to Hardwick in 1872 made it possible to ship granite in quantity from northern Vermont to the outside world, opening new markets. The railroad later built a short spur, the Hardwick Branch, from Granite Junction (near the northwestern edge of Hardwick village) south through the stonecutting district along Cooper Brook, toward Woodbury. Hardwick became a granite-cutting center, although much of the granite finished there was actually from elsewhere, such as Woodbury, the town some six miles (10 km) to the south.
Largely inspired by the World's Columbian Exposition (and especially its "White City") in 1893, granite became a popular building material for commercial and government buildings and other structures. In the era of the robber barons, the Beaux Arts style imparted to public buildings a sense of grandeur that invited proud governments and wealthy patrons to demonstrate their wealth and public benevolence in a way rarely seen before. While the finer-grained granite of Barre was preferred for monuments and gravestones, the coarser-grained Woodbury stone found a market in "architectural" uses such as buildings and paving, for which the Barre stone was too expensive. In addition, the northern stone had greater compressive strength than Barre's, making it preferable for construction of larger, heavier structures such as buildings, bridges, and mausoleums.