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Norcross Marble Co.
From Brooklyn Centre Wiki
Owner:
- Orlando W. Norcross and James A. Norcross
- Ralph W. Mitchell, President
Location:
- 3989 Jennings Avenue
- A portion of original Lot #83. 114.65' from intersection of Harvard Avenue and Jennings Avenue.
Details:
- Also known as the NORCROSS MARBLE, GRANITE & SLATE WORKS INC
- The Norcross brothers, James and Orlando, were from Worcester, Massachusetts. They purchased a property on West River Rd. between Elm and Sycamore Streets. In 1896, the Norcross Bros. Marble Co. is shown at that location along the Cuyahoga River. This business then appears in the 1903 Sanborn Insurance maps at the Jennings Avenue location. It isn't yet known when this property was purchased. The latter property was sold in 1944.
"Naturally, the business life of Centerville is entirely local with the exception, perchance, of a large stone quarry. In the summer of the year 1919, a very high grade of marble deposit was discovered in the quarry of the Casperis Stone quarry located near Centerville, which is estimated to be worth in the neighborhood of twenty-five or thirty million dollars. This important and valuable "find" was made by the Norcross Marble company of Cleveland, Ohio. The company had purchased some building stone from the Centerville quarry, and noticed that a portion of it presented an uncommon appearance; so peculiar and individualistic was it, that tests were made of its properties, and luckily for the owners of the quarry, four excellent grades of marble rewarded their scientific investigation, all good, but one grade in fact excelling the famous marble of Tennessee. Mr. R. F. George, secretary of the Norcross company, is reported to have said, "Two of the other grades are in a class by themselves, but of very high grade."
This discovery will add very materially to the wealth of Washington township. The Cleveland company has secured a lease and contract for all marble excavated in. the quarry, paying a royalty per cubic foot, in addition to a large amount given for the lease.
The output will be largely increased, from one car, its present production, to four or five carloads a day, employing a force of over fifty men using the most modern equipment for excavating.
The Norcross company has been in business in Cleveland for fully three decades. Its capital stock is rated nearly half a million dollars, and the value of its plant in that city is said to be worth $250,000. The Centerville marble receives its cutting and polishing in a northern city, but there is serious planning for a plant to be soon erected nearer the quarry, which is to be afforded good shipping facilities by the building of a branch line connecting with the Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern railway."
--"Memoirs of the Miami Valley - Volume Two"
Edited by: John C. Hover, Willard J. Wright, Joseph D. Barnes, Clayton A. Leiter,
Walter D. Jones, John Ewing Bradford, Charlotte Reeve Conover, W. C. Culkins
Published: CHICAGO, ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY, 1919
The Story of Montgomery County, Townships of Montgomery County, pg.17
Additional Reading:
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