New Monument for the Unknowns

MARBLE, Colo. – One of the most-noted marble pieces in the United States will be replaced – and the bulk of the cost won’t come out of taxpayers’ pockets. Just don’t expect the swap to occur right away.
The Denver Post reports that the Tomb of the Unknowns, the 55-ton sarcophagus at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, will be redone with new marble as a result of a crack throughout the monument. The general counsel for the federal Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) approved the request for the new tomb earlier this fall.
The Tomb of the Unknowns holds remains of unidentified members from the nation’s armed services, with one each from both World Wars and the Korean War. More than four million people visit the site annually; it’s also the location of annual Memorial Day services to commemorate veterans.
A natural crack appeared some three feet above the monument’s base, eventually spreading around the entire tomb. The Post notes that John Metzler, the cemetery’s superintendent, is ready to replace the tomb, which was quarried in 1931.
The replacement stone will come from the original source – Sierra Mineral Corp.’s Colorado Yule quarry at Marble, Colo., located 140 miles southwest of Denver. Rex Loesby, Sierra’s president in Englewood, Colo., says it may take up to a year to find the right cut for the stone. The 55-ton replacement will have a value of approximately $30,000, and be shipped to an East Coast sculptor for carving.
However, John Haines, a former automotive-dealership owner in nearby Glenwood Springs, Colo, will pay the quarrying cost. After reading about the stone replacement in local newspapers, Haines offered to donate the marble and also investigate further assistance for transporting the stone.
According to The Gunnison Country by noted Colorado historian Duane Vandenbusche, a crew of 75 men worked for a year to cut the original 124-ton block – later trimmed to 55 tons in the quarry – for the tomb. It took four days for the quarry’s tram system to transport the block 3.9 miles to the local railroad siding.
Colorado Yule also produced approximately 36,000 tons of white marble for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in the 1910s. However, after a disastrous flood in 1941, the quarry closed and wasn’t reopened until the late 1980s.
When the original block rolled out of the Colorado Yule 61 years ago, the piece represented the largest single piece of marble quarried in the U.S. The replacement, however, will only be the second-biggest for the quarry; Sierra cut a 58-ton block for a Colorado Springs, Colo., sculptor earlier this year for a planned life-sized carving of a grizzly bear with three cubs.

©2002 Western Business Media Inc.