Quincy Quarry and Granite Workers Museum - October 3, 2025

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Quincy Quarry and Granite Workers Museum is gearing up for a lot of busy events and activities. President Albina is with us once again to give us a little update on what's going on. Great to see you, Al. As always. [00:00:11] Speaker B: It's great to be here, Joe. You and I enjoy it every time we come here. [00:00:15] Speaker A: Likewise. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Likewise. [00:00:16] Speaker A: We love having you. We've kind of followed the museum's story from its inception to now. A real live museum. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, we're getting that stone building and it's in construction right now. Give us a lot more exhibit space. It'll give us meetings. We'll be able to have meetings, presentations. Yeah. Like I said, it's going to be great. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Looking forward to hearing more about that in just a little bit. And we have some brand new pictures to show folks today as well. But before we do that, let me ask you, just for folks who don't know, always like to ask, a little history of the Quincy Quarry and Granite Workers Museum. How it all started. When it started. [00:00:56] Speaker B: Yeah, we started about. I'd say about now. It's about 15 years ago. You know, no one was saving the granted history here in Quincy. So when I retired, I said both my grandparents worked in the industry. I said, let me try to do something. So we actually started there with a small group and it's grown now. We've got over about 160 members. It's amazing. We picked up a new member on this Heritage Day that visited us last weekend from Hawaii. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Really? [00:01:23] Speaker B: So now we have them right across the country, all the way to Hawaii. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:01:28] Speaker B: We can kind of brag about that. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Did they have a connection to the industry somehow? [00:01:32] Speaker B: They lived in Quincy. [00:01:33] Speaker A: Oh, they did. [00:01:33] Speaker B: They lived in Quincy. They loved the history of Quincy. So they joined. They were visiting, but they live in Hawaii. Honolulu, in fact. [00:01:39] Speaker C: Okay. [00:01:39] Speaker B: I just sent them a letter. I just sent them a newsletter and their membership and I had to put. Honolulu, Hawaii. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Excellent. You can take the person out of the Quincy, but you can't take the Quincy out of the person. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Out of the person, yeah. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Nice, nice. Very Good. So over 100 members now. And you started with just an idea, really, at the Lion's Turning, though, right? [00:02:00] Speaker B: Yes. [00:02:00] Speaker A: A few artifacts. [00:02:01] Speaker B: Just an idea. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And you really have grown that substantially for sure. [00:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And it'll be great. Just a quick, quick little note, actually, it's leased. The Quarry Hills, that whole complex up there, and the turning mill was part of it. On this new 50 year lease that Quarry Hills is looking for and is moving through the legislature right now. I asked Mayor Koga, I said, well, take this historical part of this lease and put it back into the city. So he's agreed to do that under the new contract that will be going back under the Department of Natural Resources under Dave Murphy, which will be great for us. So it's a great movement on the city's back. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So it stays under city jurisdiction. [00:02:42] Speaker B: So stay under. Strictly city jurisdiction. [00:02:45] Speaker C: Okay, Very good. [00:02:46] Speaker A: You mentioned the Open Heritage Days last weekend. Last weekend, Saturday. Right. [00:02:52] Speaker B: We had a great turnout. All these sites were open. Free. We were always free anyways. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Right. Although donations are welcome. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Oh, donations are welcome. Free shuttles to all of the sites throughout Quincy. We had a total of about 155 people that visit. That's great. [00:03:10] Speaker A: That's great. [00:03:11] Speaker B: That was great for us on one day on a Saturday. [00:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah. A couple of pictures to show folks from that actually give them a sense for what it looks like. And were these new folks out or folks that had been there before? [00:03:23] Speaker B: No, they're all new folks. New folks really didn't even know we existed. You know what I mean? We're kind of in an area of West Quincy that. It's kind of a lost area of West Quincy. [00:03:35] Speaker A: You have to know it's there. [00:03:36] Speaker B: You have to know it's there. Yeah. And this is kind of a picture of the setups we had. We had a geology on board Les Terralla, which ancient geology. We had a ham radio operator that's set up there, no relation to granite, but he sets up these, what they call special event stations and then broadcast to the world. This is the second time we've had Peter back there. [00:04:04] Speaker A: Peter Doherty. [00:04:05] Speaker B: Peter Doherty to do this. And people were very interested in ham radios. Somebody asked him, gee, how far out can you get? He opened up his logbery and he said, yeah, how about Germany? [00:04:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Folks don't realize. [00:04:17] Speaker B: Folks don't realize, you know. So he was broadcasting Quincy 400 to the world. [00:04:21] Speaker A: That's excellent. Yeah. A couple of photos. [00:04:23] Speaker B: We had a sculptor, too. Well, this is me, actually. This is a great part of when we have an open house, is working with the kids. We did stone splitting. We let people do stone splitting. We put the wedges. They put the feather and wedges in and actually split the granite. And the kids really love it. [00:04:39] Speaker A: I can see the smiles on the faces. [00:04:41] Speaker B: You know, this is. This is two of the youngsters that were actually hammering the feather wedges and actually splitting the stone. The funny thing is, after they split the stone, I always say, do you know what you just did. And they said, I split a stone. I says, no. I said, see those crystals that you see there? This is the first time they've been exposed to light in 300 million years. And when they hear that, they say, oh my God. [00:05:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Puts it in perspective. [00:05:09] Speaker B: Puts it in perspective. [00:05:11] Speaker A: You said you had a sculptor. [00:05:12] Speaker B: We had a sculptor there too. He was doing a little demonstration and he answered a lot of questions on how he sets up a sculptor and how he goes about doing a sculptor. So it was good. [00:05:22] Speaker A: And looks like you had some informative easels set up. [00:05:25] Speaker B: We had all our easels set up, actually. This is the engine room of the old Lion's Turning Mill where it was located. And we set these three by four foot photos up, which people really love it because we blow them up and they can really see a great picture what's happening at the turning mill, you know. [00:05:43] Speaker A: That's great. Yeah. So was it a success then? It sounds like. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Oh, it was a success, yeah. [00:05:47] Speaker A: Excellent. Very good. And I know that the city may do that again next year, not just for Quincy 400. [00:05:53] Speaker B: I spoke to Bob Damon and Bob did a fantastic job setting this up for the city. No glitches, everything went off smooth as silk. So I think he's going to try this next year, which will be great too. [00:06:04] Speaker A: And by then you'll have your brand new building up, right? [00:06:08] Speaker B: Oh, I hope so. [00:06:09] Speaker A: Let's get to the highlight of the story at the museum. You're getting a new structure. There it is. [00:06:17] Speaker B: What you're looking at is the original 1830 stone house. It was on the corner of Robinson street and Woolard street, right across from the Common Market restaurant. And again quickly, they were going to put up a six story apartment building there and it was going to be demolished. And the people of Quincy heard they were going to be demolished. It was just kind of an uproar. And the mayor said, gee, we got to do something. So fortunately the mayor said, we're going to take care of this and we're going to try to save the stone house, which he's in the process of doing right now. [00:06:50] Speaker A: Yes, yes. So the owner agreed to donate it to the city, essentially. [00:06:54] Speaker B: Right. They agreed to donate it to the city and. Yeah, so we've got it. [00:07:01] Speaker A: So you've got it. Now what's the next step, Al? [00:07:04] Speaker B: Fortunately, you can't move a stone house like that. [00:07:07] Speaker A: You can't just pick it up. Right? [00:07:08] Speaker B: You can't just pick it up. It had to be disassembled and it'll Be reassembled up at the Turney mill. [00:07:13] Speaker C: Okay. [00:07:14] Speaker A: All right. It's Quincy granite. Yes. It's built. [00:07:16] Speaker B: It is all historic Quincy granite. [00:07:18] Speaker C: Okay. [00:07:19] Speaker A: The only one, do you know left in the city? [00:07:22] Speaker B: It's the only one. It was the last stone house. There was three of them originally built along the old granite railway from boarding houses for the granite workers. But as they built the expressway, those were demolished. [00:07:33] Speaker C: Okay. [00:07:34] Speaker B: This was the last standing stone house in Quincy. [00:07:37] Speaker A: And it's going to be saved. [00:07:38] Speaker B: It's going to be saved. [00:07:39] Speaker A: So what's the process? What happens next? [00:07:42] Speaker B: Well, the process next is they did the foundation work up at the Turney mill. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Yes, There it is. [00:07:47] Speaker B: There it is. There's the slab that was laid. They're not doing the cellar. They're just going to build it on this cement slab. [00:07:56] Speaker C: Okay. [00:07:57] Speaker B: So the slab was laid by the Folson company. They're handling all the logistics of building this stone house. [00:08:03] Speaker C: Okay. [00:08:04] Speaker B: Did all the site work. And also they'll do the stonework also. [00:08:08] Speaker C: Okay. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Now where is this? At the museum site. Al, where is this going to be located? [00:08:12] Speaker B: This is on the. Actually, the. It'd be the southern end of the turning. [00:08:16] Speaker C: Okay. [00:08:16] Speaker B: If you're facing the turning mills from Quarry Hills Drive, it's on the southern end of the turning mill. There was nothing historic in this particular area. [00:08:23] Speaker C: Okay. [00:08:24] Speaker B: So that's why we were allowed to put it in this area. [00:08:26] Speaker C: Okay. [00:08:27] Speaker B: Because there was nothing historic on this site. [00:08:29] Speaker C: Gotcha. Okay. [00:08:30] Speaker B: Compared to the rest of the historic sites that are located around the mill. [00:08:35] Speaker A: Right. Which you're still digging of artifacts. [00:08:37] Speaker B: Oh, yes. [00:08:38] Speaker A: From time to time. Right. Not digging. [00:08:39] Speaker B: Not digging. Oh, no, no. Uncovering, cleaning. [00:08:41] Speaker A: Uncovering. I understand. So now what's this going on here? What are you building? [00:08:49] Speaker B: This is the frame. Of course, you had to build a wood frame to put the stones around. [00:08:53] Speaker A: I didn't know that. [00:08:54] Speaker B: Yeah, you just couldn't build. [00:08:57] Speaker A: Stack the stones. [00:08:58] Speaker B: Stack the stones. [00:08:58] Speaker A: That's what I thought. [00:08:59] Speaker C: No. Okay. [00:09:00] Speaker B: Because the house actually. House. They had a wooden frame in the inside. Oh, it was like a house. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Oh, all right. [00:09:06] Speaker B: And then they put the granite blocks around. [00:09:08] Speaker A: I see. [00:09:09] Speaker B: So this is the actual wooden frame, the structure. They started the frame of the house. [00:09:15] Speaker C: Okay. Okay. [00:09:16] Speaker A: Now, when are these pictures taken? [00:09:17] Speaker B: Now, this picture was taken about three weeks ago. [00:09:21] Speaker C: Okay. [00:09:21] Speaker B: All right. [00:09:22] Speaker A: So is it progressed? [00:09:22] Speaker B: So it's progressing, yeah. [00:09:24] Speaker C: Okay. [00:09:24] Speaker B: This shows the, you know, some of the siding on and doing the roof rafters. [00:09:29] Speaker A: So you need. You can't use the existing roof, obviously, right? [00:09:31] Speaker B: No. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Building a new Roof. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Building a new roof. It's all new. The, the woodwork is all new. [00:09:37] Speaker C: Okay. [00:09:37] Speaker B: The frame is all new. [00:09:41] Speaker A: Take a look at the next one, see what we've got here. All right, so it is closed in. [00:09:44] Speaker B: This is all closed in. Now this picture was in fact, I took this this morning. [00:09:48] Speaker A: Oh, very good. [00:09:49] Speaker B: I just installed the doors yesterday. Okay, doors are installed on this. [00:09:53] Speaker A: Oh, I love this. This is up to date then. [00:09:54] Speaker B: Up to date. [00:09:55] Speaker C: Okay. [00:09:55] Speaker B: The windows have all been framed out now, except the stone around the side. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:10:00] Speaker B: This is an actual picture of the interior of it. [00:10:03] Speaker A: How big is it? [00:10:04] Speaker B: It's I want to say 50 by 70ft. [00:10:09] Speaker A: It's a good size. [00:10:10] Speaker B: It's a good size. [00:10:10] Speaker C: Okay. [00:10:11] Speaker B: This is the actual interior was just taken this morning. You can see the air conditioning. Heating and air conditioning was installed two days ago. The electrician is in there right now doing all the electrical work. [00:10:24] Speaker A: So it's going to have utilities. [00:10:25] Speaker B: It's going to have utilities. It's going to have a. It's all ADA can be ADA compliant. [00:10:30] Speaker A: Yes. [00:10:31] Speaker B: It's got a heating and ventilation. [00:10:33] Speaker A: Yes. [00:10:34] Speaker B: So it'd be great. [00:10:35] Speaker C: Okay. [00:10:36] Speaker A: Bathroom facilities. [00:10:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, bathroom. ADA bathroom facility. [00:10:40] Speaker C: Okay. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:41] Speaker A: So you're building a new house essentially. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Almost like a new house with old granite. Old granite. [00:10:47] Speaker A: As the siding. [00:10:48] Speaker B: As the siding. [00:10:49] Speaker C: Wow. Okay. [00:10:51] Speaker A: What are you going to use this building for? [00:10:53] Speaker B: Well, it'll be great. We'll be able to put more artifacts in the inside. But also, you know, it's also, it can be used as almost like a community room. I'm looking at, down the road, I'm saying Ward 4 in the South Quincy area, we had a community room, but at the deli here's a school, but the school took it over. So West Quincy, South Quincy lost that community. Kind of a community center. You know, Quincy Point has one. Down in North Quincy they have one. So actually this can be used for groups, you know, if a Boy Scouts want to come in. I mean it's big enough, you know, that they can have meetings here or a local group wants to have some sort of community meeting, they can use this facility. So it's going to be. It'll be a multi purpose building along with being a museum, which will be great. [00:11:42] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:44] Speaker A: How do your members feel about this, this project? [00:11:47] Speaker B: Oh, they love it. Yeah, they just can't wait to see it. They can't wait to see the ribbon. [00:11:52] Speaker A: Cutting, let's put it that way. [00:11:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:55] Speaker A: That brings up the question, when will it be done? [00:11:57] Speaker B: Well, I think they're shooting for spring of next year. [00:12:02] Speaker C: Okay. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Yeah. All depends on the weather. They'll start stone construction this year, but, you know, all depends on the winter condition, how it goes, you know, so. [00:12:12] Speaker A: So does the house have to be kind of disassembled block by block? [00:12:15] Speaker B: And then what they did is they didn't number, they couldn't number every single stone in that house. But what they did is they numbered all the corner blocks. [00:12:24] Speaker C: Okay. [00:12:24] Speaker B: So they're going to start to construct it from the corners out. So it gives them a reference point to start with. So all the corners of that house were all numbered. [00:12:33] Speaker C: Okay. [00:12:34] Speaker B: And they're all laid out, numbered, waiting for a stone mason now to erect them and put them together. [00:12:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Okay. [00:12:43] Speaker A: How thick are those blocks, those granite blocks? [00:12:45] Speaker B: Oh, some of them blocks are like, you know, a foot, foot and a half around the perimeter of the frame. They left about a foot and a half foot concrete that was part of the slab. [00:12:58] Speaker C: Okay. [00:12:58] Speaker B: That's where the granite blocks will go. They'll start putting on that granite slab on the outside and just erecting them all around the house. [00:13:05] Speaker C: Wow. Okay. [00:13:07] Speaker A: I can think of no more appropriate building for the Quincy Quarry and Granite Workers Museum than a Quincy granite building. [00:13:15] Speaker B: It'll be great because it'll kind of, you know, you have the stoning mill, the turning mill, which is all stone, and now you got a nice stone building. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Yes. [00:13:24] Speaker B: It'll kind of match what we have there. [00:13:28] Speaker A: This, this is really al what you wanted from the beginning ten years ago. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Ten years ago for the museum. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Right. Was a permanent structure for the museum. You have the shed, essentially. Right. That you're using for some of your exhibits. But this is really what you were looking for? [00:13:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:13:46] Speaker A: Way back when. [00:13:46] Speaker B: Way back when. [00:13:47] Speaker A: And here it is. How does that make you feel? [00:13:49] Speaker B: Great. I just hope I hang on long enough to see it, Joe. [00:13:52] Speaker A: Of course you will. [00:13:53] Speaker B: I'm getting older. [00:13:54] Speaker C: Oh, no, no, no. [00:13:54] Speaker A: Are you kidding? You're gonna outlive us all. Alright, what are we looking at? [00:13:58] Speaker B: This is a shot of the. We actually, we had the rail car up at the Turney Mill and then the mayor wanted to put it in the parade. It was in the. [00:14:08] Speaker A: His Flag Day parade. [00:14:09] Speaker B: Flag day parade. [00:14:10] Speaker A: Quincy 400 parade. [00:14:11] Speaker B: Quincy 400 parade. Right. So it was in the Philandra parade and it's been sitting down, I guess the city barn yesterday. The city said, gee, we got to get it out of there. They brought it up there yesterday morning. So we have the rail car back up at the Turney Mill. The plan is in fact, I got an email from Granite City Partners, who's overseeing the whole project, Joe Shea's group. They're working on a slab and also a covering for the rail car. [00:14:40] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [00:14:40] Speaker B: So that's going to. [00:14:41] Speaker A: It'll be its own display. [00:14:43] Speaker B: Its own display. Originally, the mayor wanted to put it in the building, but it's such a large piece of equipment. It would have filled up so much of that area. So they decided to build almost like a little kind of carriage house on the opposite side of the house to house the actual rail car. [00:15:03] Speaker C: Okay. [00:15:03] Speaker B: So we're really glad to have that rail car back up there, and I guess that's where the mayor wants it. [00:15:08] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:09] Speaker C: Okay. [00:15:09] Speaker A: And is that an original rail car? [00:15:11] Speaker B: That's a replica built in 1925 for the 100th anniversary of the Granite Railway. [00:15:16] Speaker C: Okay, okay. [00:15:17] Speaker A: Which is another area that still needs restoration. Right. The railway itself. [00:15:21] Speaker B: The railway itself, yeah. [00:15:22] Speaker C: Okay. [00:15:22] Speaker A: That's a future project. Well, now that you're done with this, Al, you can move on to that. [00:15:27] Speaker B: There's so many projects we could go on to. You know, you start down one road, and there's two other things you pick up on the way. [00:15:33] Speaker A: You know who's actually doing the construction out there on the building? [00:15:37] Speaker B: A company called John Folson Construction Company. Great guy to work with. Unbelievable to work with. All his people are great, and I know he's done a lot of work in the city, too. [00:15:49] Speaker C: Okay. [00:15:50] Speaker A: Does it take kind of some special knowledge or technique to work with these big granite blocks? You know, this is not something that most crews are used to working with. [00:15:57] Speaker B: Well, I'm sure he has stonemasons on board. [00:16:01] Speaker A: On call or on call. Yeah. Interesting. [00:16:03] Speaker C: Okay. [00:16:03] Speaker A: Do we know where that granite was quarried from? [00:16:06] Speaker B: We don't. We don't know exactly where it was coming Again, the building was built in 1830. You know, it's amazing. We're setting up a little new display. There was two methods of splitting granite back in the, you know, the 1700s up to the 1800s. It's what they call the flat wedge in shim. And then from the early 1800s on, it was a plug and feather method. And all the blocks they had dumped, you know, to reconstruct this thing. Some of the blocks who used the old flat wedge and shim, and some used the plug and feather. So it was kind of interesting. In 1830, they were using both methods of splitting granite. [00:16:47] Speaker C: Okay. [00:16:47] Speaker A: And you can see that evidence in the stone. [00:16:48] Speaker B: You can see that evidence in the stone. We're putting a little presentation to show that the difference between the flat wedge and the plug and feather. [00:16:58] Speaker C: Plug and featherwidge. Yeah. [00:16:59] Speaker A: I think it's important to note that this project is being paid for with community preservation funds, right? Yes. $900,000 was allocated. [00:17:07] Speaker B: $940,000 were allocated through Quincy Preservation, which, again, it's not taxpayer money, it's preservation money. [00:17:15] Speaker A: The museum itself, first weekend of every month. You're open. Yes. [00:17:19] Speaker B: First weekend of every month. This coming weekend, we're open. [00:17:21] Speaker A: It's going to be beautiful. [00:17:23] Speaker B: Keep it. The weatherman said it's going to be a beautiful day. [00:17:25] Speaker A: You know, that's not me. I'm just. I'm just saying what they said. But it should be nice. [00:17:29] Speaker B: Yeah, should be nice. Yeah. [00:17:30] Speaker A: And then archaeology month is October 18th. [00:17:34] Speaker B: October 18th, I think. [00:17:35] Speaker C: Okay. [00:17:37] Speaker B: I think it is the 18th. It's on a Saturday. [00:17:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:17:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:40] Speaker A: And you'll be open for that as well? [00:17:42] Speaker B: We'll be open for that, yeah. [00:17:43] Speaker C: All right. [00:17:43] Speaker A: Al, so great to talk to you, and thank you so much for the updates. We're looking forward to the ruby cutting. [00:17:49] Speaker B: Joe, it's always been a pleasure. And like I always say, we're chipping away at it, but don't take it for granted. [00:17:54] Speaker A: I feel. I feel complete now. Now that you've said that, thanks again.