The Whales Back Granite Quarry in Sullivan, Maine

Beginning in 2004, I established a new operating and permitted granite quarry on Whales Back Road, in Sullivan, Maine.  We began this venture by cutting trees and pushing away overburden to expose a granite head, or “whales back.”  In the spring of 2005, we began to harvest granite blocks and up until the teeth of the current recession settled in. We mined the tight grained, salt and pepper colored granite that we trademarked as “Sullivan Silver Star™.”

The granite itself is extremely hard and unusual for granite from this part of the country.  In fact, testing has shown Sullivan Silver Star™ to be among the hardest rocks found in any formation in Maine, which makes it entirely suitable for all stone uses, including aggregate for use in MDOT or USDOT construction projects, manufacture of asphalt and concrete, and other end products.

The operating company established for the granite mining operation was named “Sullivan Memorial Stoneworks, LLC”; and that company ceased to exist on December 31, 2009.  The property today is owned by Whales Back Properties, LLC. The Whales Back Quarry is for sale or for a very long-term lease to a qualified operator, either for dimensional stone or other stone uses, as a granite mining property, permitted with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and registered as an active quarry with the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the owners intend to sell the quarry in 2011.   

Opening & Closing the Whales Back Quarry (2004 to present):

The Whales Back Quarry was a venture that my wife and I decided to begin after selling some investment property in Ellsworth.   Our goal was to create a year-round business using Maine workers in a traditional Maine industry.  The next phase of the business plan called for us to leave the business making the company an employee-owned company through a proposed ESOP. 

We began by having an excavator push the overburden away from a whales back, and the next spring we fired up a large torch and cut channels into the exposed ledge.  The first layer was more than 30 inches thick, which was a major stroke of luck, and automatically gave us the potential of marketing our stone to the marine construction industry as well as the high end landscaping industry that flourished along the mid- to upper-Maine coast at the time. 

At one point there was a need for another worker in the quarry; and I, at sixty-one years of age, became the granite cutting apprentice.  I can tell you that I learned that summer that at six o’clock in the morning in the granite quarry a sixteen pound hammer weighs sixteen pounds, and at one o’clock in the afternoon, it weighs eighty-seven pounds!

Soon we had a LOT of work for our small company:  pier stones, hand-formed garden edging for some very expensive summer properties near Acadia National Park, as well as some larger scale projects for the MDOT, (photographs below). 

Because of the ergonomic and financial disadvantages of using an oxygen/kerosene burning torch to cut stone, we bought a new air driven channel cutting drill rig, which increased the rate at which we could cut stone blocks by a factor of at least six.  Unhappily, the year was 2007, and although the future looked bright in December, by the time the snow was melted from the quarry in 2008, it was clear that our markets had dried up and we were in for a long, cold economic “winter.”  Reluctantly, I ceased operations when our workload was complete in July, 2008. 

The equipment was liquidated, and the last two years have been devoted to site cleaning and some miscellaneous stone sales from remaining stone inventory.  Today the quarry is ready to be mined either for dimensional stone or more likely, as a source of very high grade aggregate.  As I said, the hardness of the stone is far below the MDOT minimum for aggregate used in Maine Department of Transportation projects.  Naturally, I have maintained the necessary permits for this quarry to be developed; and, under Maine regulations, there is no restriction as to how a quarry is used:  once permitted so long as the permit is in place, the site can be mined.

The Whales Back Quarry is on the top of a hill, about fifty feet above the Whales Back Road. During the formative days of the quarry, we had core samples taken from the actual quarry site, and our cores were taken to a depth of 34 feet.  Our quarry is self-draining due to its location; and for an indefinite length of time into the future, water management will likely never be an issue for this site. In the immediate vicinity are numerous very large old quarries, now full of water, some with the old quarrying machinery still resting on the bottom, thirty five feet below the surface. 

The Whales Back granite quarry ceased formal operations in July, 2008, although we have continued some limited operations, principally devoted to site maintenance and shipping of excess stone since that time. 

The Whales Back Quarry is for sale or for a very long-term lease to a qualified operator, either for dimensional stone or other stone uses, as a granite mining property, permitted with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and registered as an active quarry with the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the owners intend to sell the quarry in 2011. 

The appraised value of the quarry, based on the proven reserves within the quarry site itself, was $550,000 in 2007.  We have a total of 24 acres that comprise the entire quarry property; and the total asking price for the entire quarry parcel, including the license to use all trade names and with the permit in place is going to be in the $400,000 range.  (Further information about the quarry is available on Roger Woodbury’s “Whales Back Quarry” site.)

Originally the town of Sullivan was established around its granite sites; and at one time, Sullivan granite was used as paving materials for the developing cities of the United States.  Curbing and paving stones are still on the streets of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities up and down the east coast.  Scratch the surface in Sullivan, and there is granite not far below the overburden. 

The quarry business was at one time an extremely important part of the economy of the State of Maine, and of the development of this country.  Stone cutting is a trade that is vanishing in this country, and the industry as a whole enjoys no protections from foreign imports.  In developing this property and business, I learned a great deal about stone.  I had long considered myself to be a “juniper and granite” person; and, although there was little joy in hitting the back of my hand with a three pound hammer while I learned the techniques of granite forming, in retrospect, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.  I am pleased that we were able to give to the greater community as my wife and I both believe in the concept of community and that sometimes it is a process that is best accomplished by one on one, one step at a time.

Roger M. Woodbury