This well preserved Fire Fighting water pump engine is found outside the Marble VFD Fire Station #3. It is mounted on a wagon that could have eight been drawn by horses, mules or men. There are two water tanks that appear to have been pressurized. I have been unable to find more information about this old water pump, but it is a unique piece of fire fighting equipment.
Marble became prosperous because of the unique yule marble deposit which became the economic driver for the town.
"The Town of Marble was incorporated in 1899, and the marble industry grew slowly because the marble was difficult to extract and transporting it was a longstanding challenge. Shown here is the main chamber of the Yule Quarry, circa 1920s, where all the blocks for the Lincoln Memorial were quarried and sent to the finishing mill.
But the Colorado-Yule Quarry did become successful and a tram was built to bring the marble down the mountain to the Treasury Mountain Railway, by which this beautiful white stone was transported to Carbondale and introduced throughout the country. The Colorado-Yule Marble Company also built the largest marble finishing mill in the world, the length of 5 ½ football fields, complete with an overhead crane system to take the pieces to the various shops for fabrication.
Countless buildings and monuments throughout the United States were built with marble from Marble, Colorado, and the population continued to increase, to a high of about 1400 in the boom years of 1912-1917. In 1913, a slab of Yule marble was sent to Washington, D.C. to be part of the Washington Monument. On March 10, 1914, the Colorado-Yule quarry was awarded its most prestigious contract to date: the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., designed by Henry Bacon. His inspiration was the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, the birthplace of democracy, a fitting tribute to President Lincoln, who kept our American democratic experiment intact. World War I dealt a devastating blow to the Marble economy because many of the workers in Marble were from Austria and Italy, and returned to their European homelands to fight in the war. The Colorado-Yule Marble Company closed the quarry and the finishing mill in 1917. By 1920, Marble had a population of only 81.
In 1930, however, the Yule-Colorado company was awarded the most prestigious marble contract of the time—that of the block for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After two failed attempts to quarry a “perfect” block the third try succeeded. This was, at the time, the largest block of marble ever quarried in the world. It then took workers another 4 days to get this 56 ton block of marble down the mountain. The block was loaded onto a rail car and shipped to Vermont for cutting and then to Arlington Cemetery for carving, where it still resides today.
The Yule Marble quarry closed in 1941 as a result of declining demand and the entry of the United States into WWII. Much of the equipment and railroad was scrapped and used in the war effort. The population of Marble continued to decline…down to a population of 1 in the 1950s (schoolteacher Teresa Herman). But the beautiful valley did not remain a ghost town for long, attracting tourists, retirees and even a failed ski area development in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1990 the quarry was reopened. For a list of the buildings and monuments using Colorado-Yule marble, (
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The story of Marble is closely connected to the marble quarry and finishing mill. A large part of that story is the far-sightedness and determination of those who pursued their dream and produced some of the most beautiful and meaningful monuments in the country that stand as an inspiration to all of us." (from (
visit link) )