Rattlesnake Hill Granite Quarry, New Hampshire

New Hampshire is called the Granite State, and Rattlesnake Hill, which rises above the north end of Concord, the state’s capital, has one of the largest active granite quarries in the state. The granite for the first Library of Congress building in Washington DC, came from here. As the demand for stone for buildings decreased, giving way to steel and concrete, the scattered quarries on the hill, where 44 separate companies were operating in 1900, closed or were bought up. By 1941, only one company remained, the Swenson Granite Company, which still operates the quarry today. Swenson survived by buying quarry operations here, and all over the country, and is now the largest granite company in the nation. It owns Rock of Ages, the largest supplier of granite tombstones, including the company’s famous quarries in Barre, Vermont. In the 1970s, Swenson stopped supplying building stone, and since then its Rattlesnake Hill quarry has produced mostly curbstone. Curbs (the edges of roads and sidewalks) are commonly made of granite in the northeastern US, where snow and de-icing salt breaks down concrete, which is otherwise typically used for curbs.