Granite Quarries

Index For This Page

This page was last updated on July 6, 2026.

Granite For The Temple (1860-1891)

From 1860 to 1891, the granite quarries at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon furnished granite for the Salt Lake City temple of the LDS Church. At first the granite blocks were moved by wagon, but that method proved to be very difficult and would take much more time than the builders wanted.

When the Utah Southern railroad was built beginning in 1871, one of its stated purposes was to move granite for the temple, which explains why its route took it to Sandy, instead of a more central route (which was followed by the D&RGW in 1881). Upon reaching Sandy September 1871, the construction of a branch spur to reach the granite quarries was started.

During the summer of 1872 the Utah Southern began construction of a standard-gauge line east from Sandy to the granite quarries in Little Cottonwood Canyon. On October 24, 1872 the Wasatch & Jordan Valley Railroad was incorporated to build a narrow-gauge line from Sandy to the mines further up Little Cottonwood Canyon. In November the Wasatch & Jordan Valley took over the Utah Southern grade and two months later they began laying track. On April 28, 1873, the line was completed to the quarries, at a new station appropriately called Granite. There was now an all-rail route from the granite quarries direct to Temple Square.

In mid 1891 the last large granite stones for the temple were moved, with the ceremonial "Last Stone" being on site at the temple block by early October 1891.

Granite Quarries (1913-1917)

Granite from the Little Cottonwood quarries, in the 1913 to 1917 time period, was used in the construction of the following buildings:

Utah state capitol (Salt Lake City)
Park building at the University of Utah (Salt Lake City)
LDS church administration building (Salt Lake City)
D&RGW freight house (Ogden)

The granite was shipped by railroad from the quarries, by way of the Salt Lake & Alta railroad, to Midvale, where the preliminary rough work was completed; then by Union Pacific's Oregon Short Line to the finishing shops in Salt Lake City.

One of the finishing shops was on the site of the closed Bingham Consolidated Mining & Smelting company's copper smelter in Midvale. The smelter had closed in 1907 as a result of the smelter smoke law suits, after which the mining company, reorganized as the Bingham Mines company, sent its ore to the new Asarco smelter at Garfield.

For the state capitol construction, the finished granite was loaded on flat cars which were moved on the Salt Lake City street car system by way of Main Street, up the hill to the capitol construction site.

December 19, 1912
Utah State Capitol Building -- The contract for the construction of the Utah state capitol building was awarded on December 19, 1912 to James Stewart & Company. Groundbreaking ceremony was held December 26, 1912. The capitol was to be built of stone, with a concrete and steel superstructure. By spring 1913 the foundation and basement walls were in place, and the steel columns and wooden frames for the concrete were being installed. On April 4, 1914, a cornerstone ceremony was presided over by Governor William Spry.

September 9, 1913
D&RG Ogden Freight Terminal -- Construction of the new D&RG freight depot in Ogden began on September 9, 1913. Construction started on September 16th, after D&RG surveyors marked off the site of the new building. Operations were moved from the old freight depot, to the new location on February 28, 1914, with the first day of full operation planned for Monday morning, March 2, 1914. (Ogden Standard, September 8, 1913; September 16, 1913, "this morning"; February 12, 1914, "nearing completion"; February 28, 1914, "this afternoon and tomorrow")

October 1913
News item about Utah Consolidated Stone Company, which had the contract to furnish the stone for the new state capitol building, purchasing the twenty-five acres in Midvale formerly occupied by the Bingham Consolidated Mining & Smelting Company. The property was held for some time by N. Rosenblatt & Sons Company. The property still contained cranes, hoists, boilers, engines, and other machinery, and was to be manned by a force of 150 stone cutters to produce 500 cubic feet of cut and dressed stone for the capitol building per day. (Salt Lake Mining Review, Volume 15, number 13, October 15, 1913, p.38, "Dips, Spurs and Angles")

(According to the Ogden Standard for September 19, 1913, the contract to use Little Cottonwood granite was signed at 7 p.m. on September 18, 1913. The contract was between James Stewart & Company, the general contractor, and Utah Consolidated Stone Company, and the amount was reported as $608,223.00.)

October 1, 1913
D&RG announced that stone for its new freight terminal in Ogden would be furnished by Utah Consolidated Stone Company. (Salt Lake Tribune, October 2, 1913)

February 3, 1914
Utah Consolidated Stone Company completed a large powder blast at the quarry that brought down 277,000 cubic feet of loose granite. Among the loosened granite were two blocks that totaled 75,000 cubic feet, and single block that was 10,000 cubic feet. The capitol was to include 165,000 cubic feet of granite stone. (Improvement Era, March 1914, Volume 17, Number 5, page 498)

According to an article about the Utah Consolidated Stone Company in The Salt Lake Mining Review of June 30, 1914, upon obtaining the $608,000 contract to furnish 165,000 cubic feet of granite for the building of the Utah state capitol, the stone company advanced the funds needed to build the Salt Lake & Alta Railroad. The line was 10 miles long and connected directly with the stone company's dressing works in Midvale on the old smelter site of the Bingham Consolidated Co., which was adjacent to the United States smelter.

Salt Lake Mining Review article for June 30, 1914, reported that the semi-finished stone, including the columns turned on a large lathe at the Midvale plant, were shipped by D&RGW to a second plant located at 660 West 2nd South, where the final finishing was completed. The finished stone was then shipped over the street railway system to the capitol grounds.

August 1914
During the first week of August 1914, the first of 52 columns for the capitol building were delivered, each in three sections. The columns had been turned on the large lathe at the Midvale plant of Utah Consolidated Stone Company. (Salt Lake Telegram, July 28, 1914, "will arrive at the capitol grounds this week")

May 19, 1915
LDS Church Administration Building -- Constructed between 1914 and 1917, the building is built of quartz monzonite from the same quarry in Little Cottonwood Canyon as the stone used for the Utah State Capitol and the nearby Salt Lake Temple. The Mt. Nebo Marble Company supplied marble and travertine for the interior of the building, using Birdseye marble from the Thistle area of Utah County, and travertine and onyx from Pelican Point near Utah Lake in Utah County and the Cedar Mountains of Tooele County. The building was opened on October 2, 1917. "Like the Salt Lake Temple, the Administration Building is composed of granite, taken from the same area in Little Cottonwood Canyon, but with a key difference. While all the stone for the Salt Lake Temple was taken from loose granite boulders in the canyon, stone extracted from the canyon walls is what was used for the Church Administration Building." A cornerstone weighing ten tons was laid on May 19, 1915, and was reportedly the heaviest cornerstone used so far in the intermountain west. The church historian's office moved into the new building on February 28, 1917. The building was opened for use on October 2, 1917. (Davis County Clipper, September 11, 1914; Salt Lake Herald, May 20, 1915, "yesterday"; Salt Lake Tribune, March 1, 1917, "yesterday")

(Read the Wikipedia article about the LDS Church Administration Building)

March 1916
According to the March 1916 issue of Stone magazine, Utah Consolidated Stone Company had closed down its large stone plant at Midvale, and its stone yards in Salt Lake City, on account of the completion of the church office building. (Stone magazine, March 1916, Volume 37, Number 3, page 150)

(The closure of the granite quarrying operations in 1916 meant that, after moving over 800 carloads of granite, the traffic base for Salt Lake & Alta was reduced to the minimal movement of ores from the Little Cottonwood mines.)

More Information

Little Cottonwood Railroads -- Information about all the railroads that served the quarries and mines in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

###