Norcross-West Quarry: by Andrus BowenBy Susanne Washburn
Photography courtesy of Andrus L. Bownen
At the turn of the 20th century, the name Dorset was synonymous with marble throughout the country The quintessential Vermont hydro-experience is a swim in the Dorset Quarry. Surrounded by what remains of rock once mined there for assorted uses, private and public, the swimmer revels in the freshet of ground water that has emerged from the area's high water table to fill the huge excavation to great depths. A dip on Memorial Day weekend is a brush with the Arctic. On a hot August afternoon, it's enough to cool you down for the rest of the day. Even when the water temperature has become comfortable, the swimmer is surprised to wander into a cold draft served up by a strong underground spring. The water itself and the dives and leaps from high marble perches have made the quarry a favorite local swimming hole for most of the past century.
The quarry's earlier long life and its ups and downs is a tale of Dorset lives and the rock that shaped them. It's been said that the first settlers, who came from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York in 1768, mistook a marble ledge for a snow bank. Less than 20 years later an industry based on the stone that would be named an official Vermont geo-symbol in 1993 had begun, and would endure for 130 years. When the local marble industry was at its peak in decades before and just after the turn of the 20th century, the name Dorset was synonymous with marble throughout the country...
