Shiras Pointe Condominium Association

Little remains today to remind us of what once was a flourishing industry here in the Queen City of Marquette, from a small farm site in South Marquette once known as “Pendills Farm,” a highly unusual colored stone was mined and shipped to all parts of the United States. Indeed, even such distant places as Cornwall, England and Montreal, Canada became the proud recipients of this rare and beautiful type of sandstone.

Along its architectural credits stand such renowned buildings as the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, the city hall in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Michigan School of Mines at Michigan Technological University in Houghton. The Marquette County Courthouse was one of the last major buildings constructed of this material in 1903.

In 1869 the farm was sold to George Craig who became the first known person to mine and market the sandstone from the area. In approximately 1870 John Henry Jacobs from Lorian, Ohio bought the quarry and named it the Wolf and Company Quarry. In 1872 a group of investors which included Disney Adams, T.B. Brooks, Williams Burt, F.F. Ely and the renowed Peter White formed a corporation and changed the name to the Marquette Brownstone Quarry.