Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-06-30
PUT ASHLAND
ON The MAP
ASHLAND GRANITE SHOULD
BUILD PORTLAND p. o.
QUALITY OF STONE UNSURPASSED
Quantity is Inexhaustible and4 All
That is Needed to Make Ashland
Granite Famous is Capital and
Big Boost.

That Ashland could be put as per-
manently on the map as any of the
localities in the east furnishing fam
Gus building stone has long been
known to experts In that line, but
impossible to get United States archi-
tects to specify, even as an alternate
stone, the use of Oregon granite.
Now, however, through the efforts Of
Congressman Lafferty the secretary
of the treasury has given an order
that Oregon stone may be used in
the construction of the Portland
postoffice building, which will cost
over one million dollars.
The Portland Chamber OF Com
merce is sending out an invitation
through the Portland papers and
otherwise for all having stone suit
able for the purpose to communicate
with them.
Some years ago certain parties
whose ignorance of the requirements
of building stone was only equaled
by their optimism attempted to quar-
ry granite on Ashland creek and ship
it to Portland and the stone when
received there was rejected as worth
less, which it was, and this led many
to believe that Ashland granite was
all worthless, but such is not the
case. The Permission Granite Com
pany of this city has three quarries
of granite the equal of any in the
United States and they only need
capital to develop business which
would mean much not only to the
company but to the city and to south
ern Oregon in general.
one of the quarries on small scale,
getting out stone for their monu-
ment work, and has done some to-
ward opening up the others, but they
have not been able to interest large
capitalists because of the unfriendly
attitude of the government architects
toward western stone in federal
buildings. Now that this has
changed they have great hopes of
being able to interest large and in
fluential granite firms in the Ashland
quarries. Two of the quarries, which
are of gray granite, are in the terri
tory tributary to Ayers Spur, and
the product can be delivered by grav-
ity trans direct to the Southern Pa
cific railway. These are the two
quarries which would be most avail
able for the construction of build
ings.
Their third quarry is in what is
known on the geological maps of
Jackson county as Permission canyon.
This canyon lies between the two
forks of Ashland creek and no one
going to Mount Ashland would for
one moment suspect that within a
little over quarter of mile from
the road there were sheer cliffs of
solid, high-grade granite suitable for
building purposes and the equal o.
any in the United States, and suffi-
cient in quantity to construct all the
buildings in Frisco. Not only this,
there are vast quantities of varie-
gated granite in various shades OF
pink which make the very best OF
ornamental work for either interior
or exterior decorations.
A representative of the, Tidings
visited this deposit with William
Permission recently and was dunn
founded at the magnitude of the de-
posit, as we'll as at the solidity of
the rock and it's freedom from fis-
sure. The largest blocks of granite
needed for the most stupendous
buildings could there be secured.
A trip to the quarry, however
showed clearly that it would have to
be worked on a large scale to be
profitable. 1t would require a plant
of many thousand dollars expense to
handle the stone, which would have
to be transported to the wagon road
on a gravity tramway which would
cost thousands of dollars to con-
struct. In one way, however, the
quarry can be cheaply operated. 1t
is high on the side of a deep canyon
and the refuse stone can be dumped
into the canyon without doing dam
age and at little expense. The quar-
ried stone would have to be conveyed
from the mouth of the canyon to the
city by motor trucks, which could be
done at good profit with the varie-
gated granite, which will bring q