Over the years, the output of Colorado's quarries met with a remarkable degree of public and official acceptance. Quite an impressive array of public structures utilized Yule marble in their Construction. In Denver, the Customs House, the Colorado National Bank, and the Colorado State Museum were erected from the Treasure Mountain quarries. Thus far, this single block holds the record for being the largest chunk of monument quality marble that has ever been removed from a quarry anywhere. At the mill it was scaled down from its original weight to fifty-five tons.
Old photographs show the huge unfinished piece loaded on a railroad flatcar for removal.
At the quarry, slightly more than a year of work was required to remove it from the mountain. Final processing and polishing were done by the Vermont Marble Company at their New England plant before sending it to Washington. Although the demise of Marble is directly attributable to a combination of high shipping costs coupled with increased use of marble substitutes and veneers, the decline was certainly hastened by the snowslide of 1912 and the catastrophic mud avalanche that nearly buried the town in August of 1941. Some people blame the whole thing on overgrazing by sheep on the alpine slopes above the town. One resident of the valley showed me a photograph of the lush mountaintop rangeland in the early days.