Georgia Marble Company Records, circa 1910-2004

The Georgia Marble Company was founded in May 1884, in Tate, Georgia, as one of many small marble quarrying operations in the region. However, modern-day interest in the region's marble deposits began in the early nineteenth-century, when an Irish stonemason named Henry T. Fitzsimmons noticed outcroppings of marble in select areas of northern Georgia. And while Fitzsimmons did play a pivotal role in galvanizing interest in Georgia’s marble deposits during this period, he did not discover them. Etowah Native Americans, and perhaps other American Indian tribes, used Georgia marble deposits to create statues and relics during the fourteenth century. However, it was not until the 1840s that utilization of Georgia marble began to increase, a phenomenon that was largely due to Fitzsimmons and the opening of his own marble business called “Long Swamp Marble Company.” Years later, entrepeneurs Henry C. Clement, Frank H. Sidall, and O.F. Bane also became intrigued by Georgia’s wealth of marble deposits and established the Georgia Marble Company, with Henry C. Clement serving as president of the company. Around the same time, another businessman named Samuel Tate purchased tracts of land containing large deposits of marble in Pickens County, Georgia. He too became a partner in the Georgia Marble Company, and in 1905, Tate became the company’s president, continuing in that position until his death in 1938. During the early twentieth century, Georgia Marble Company was aggressive with local expansion, and in 1916 and 1917, the company purchased the Blue Ridge Marble Company, the George B. Sickels Marble Company, the Amicalola Marble Company, the Kennesaw Marble Company, and the Southern Marble Company. Georgia Marble Company stone can be found in monuments and public buildings around the world, including the Lincoln Memorial and the twenty-four columns on the east front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The Georgia Marble Company operated until 1968 when Jim Walter bought the company for twenty-three million dollars in 1969. The company changed ownership many times until it was finally purchased by Polycor in 2003.