DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Granite Mountain, up in Burnet County. Now, most mountains have a little mystery to them — some legend, some folklore. Granite Mountain keeps it simpler than that.
This mountain doesn't deal in mystery. It deals in the hardest, most unyielding stuff the earth ever made, and it has been making its case, quietly and powerfully, for a very long time. Pull up close, because this story starts a long way down.
Thousands of feet below the surface of the earth, this mountain began as molten rock — not so different from lava. Slowly, over time, it cooled. And as it cooled in the deep dark below, it hardened into large crystals: quartz, feldspar, and several dark-colored minerals, all fused together into that pink granite you can see rising eight hundred and sixty-six feet above the ground today, covering a solid one hundred and eighty acres.
That is not a hill. That is a statement. Now, before it was anybody's quarry, this mountain was part of a grant made to a Texas colonist by the name of William Slaughter.
What he made of that arrangement, the marker doesn't say — but the mountain was just getting started commercially. The moment that put Granite Mountain on the map came in the eighteen eighties, and it came dressed up as a political fight. A dispute broke out over what kind of stone ought to be used in the construction of the Capitol in Austin.
Limestone or granite — and not just any granite, but native stone, right here from Texas soil. The argument had real teeth to it. Then, in eighteen eighty-five, Governor John Ireland settled the matter.
He resisted demands to use non-native limestone. Just flat out resisted them. When the governor of Texas digs in his heels, things tend to move.
And they did. A special track was built — purpose-built — to haul that pink granite from this mountain down to the rail line in Burnet. And here's the part that ought to give you a warm feeling about the whole enterprise: the stone was donated to the state.
Generously donated, the marker says, by the quarry owners — G. W. Lacy, N.
L. Norton, and W. H.
Westfall. Three men who looked at a mountain and said, take what you need. What came of it is standing in Austin right now.
That Capitol, and new state office buildings near it, carry the bones of this mountain within them. So does the Galveston sea wall — which, if you know anything about what the Gulf of Mexico is capable of, you understand why they reached for the strongest, most durable stone they could find. Wherever strength, durability, and beauty of finish are required, the marker says, granite is a favored building stone.
And today, granite from this quarry ships to all parts of Texas, across the United States, and into foreign countries — for monuments, shafts, jetties, buildings. The largest quarry of its kind in the United States, right here in Burnet County. One mountain, once just melted rock deep beneath the earth, cooling slowly into crystals of pink and gray.
It didn't need a legend. It just needed time — and Governor Ireland to make the right call.
What the marker says
This 866-foot dome of solid pink granite, covering 180 acres, contains the largest quarry of its kind in the United States. This mountain, like all granite formations, was once melted rock similar to lava. As the molten rock cooled thousands of feet below the earth's surface, it hardened into large crystals of quartz, feldspar and several dark-colored minerals. Wherever strength, durability and beauty of finish are required, granite is a favored building stone. The mountain was part of a grant made to Texas colonist William Slaughter. The site became famous commercially when a dispute arose in the 1880s over the type of stone to be used in the Capitol in Austin. The issue was settled in 1885 when Governor John Ireland resisted demands to use non-native limestone. Following this decision, a special track was built to haul the granite to the rail line in Burnet. The stone was generously donated to the state by quarry owners G. W. Lacy, N. L. Norton, and W. H. Westfall. Today granite from the quarry here is shipped to all parts of Texas, the U.S. and foreign countries for use in monuments, shafts, jetties, and buildings. It has been used in the Galveston sea wall and in new state office buildings near the Capitol in Austin.