By Steve Plutt

The Pikes Peak Granite Company was founded in Woodland Park in August of 1952 by Lawrence Noga. Situated on the southern side of Midland Avenue immediately east of West Street, it was an elongated structure featuring tar-shingled siding and numerous windows. Inside, it featured an exceptionally high ceiling with large exposed wooden beams and served as a landmark in Woodland for numerous years.

Before Noga located in Woodland Park, he is said to have tramped over hundreds of thousands of acres looking for a commercial source of ruby red granite, which at the time was the kind of stone most in demand for headstones. He finally found what he wanted in Park County out toward Guffey where he described the flawless Pikes Peak Granite rock there “as good of granite as there is in the country.” So that is where he quarried his headstones.

At the quarry, large blocks of granite measuring 10-feet long by 4-feet wide and thick were loaded onto trucks and hauled to Woodland Park. On two different occasions I helped local contractor Red Woods (1927-2005) load the stone at the quarry and onto his old truck and then it was a long, slow trip back to Woodland. Once here, the rock would be offloaded using the 95-foot-tall, 20-ton derrick that was permanently located on the south side of the building. The stone was placed on a railroad-like cart with tracks that led right into the building’s “cutting pit.”

Once the cart and stone were inside the shop, the cutting process began. An abrasive powder called Carborundum was the cutting agent and was used along with water and with downward pressure, sluiced over the top of the rock by a circular wire saw. That three-stranded wire cable was 200-foot-long and was twisted in opposite directions every three feet and spun at about 60 miles an hour. It circled around and around, constantly dragging the plaster-like Carborundum mix through the grooves it created. The end result was thinner granite slabs that measured 1-foot thick by 4-foot wide by 10-foot long. Another saw with a diamond-tipped blade cut the stone into smaller pieces.

After the large blocks were cut to smaller sizes, they were moved to other areas of the shop. This Pikes Peak granite weighed just about 175 pounds per cubic foot. Moving the heavy stones from station to station inside the shop was done with a large overhead trolley system equipped with a heavy overhead winch. The trolley would move from side to side inside the shop and could also move the entire length of the shop and extended outside the west doors to the loading area.

At those different stations, the talented men with their hammers and special chisels would spend hours working the rock into the shapes of headstones. Next in the process is the leveling and polishing. A 60-grit Carborundum is sprinkled on the stone as the polishing machine rotates round and round as maneuvered by the workmen. As the polishing progresses, a finer 500-grit powder is used. The last thing to do is to use a tin oxide as a face powder that puts the final shine on the stone.

Pikes Peak Granite headstones made in Woodland Park were shipped to the four corners of the United States. The plant provided good jobs and was one of the leading employers in town. I remember how cold and drafty it was in that building in the wintertime. That cold, combined with all the splashing and spraying water that was used to polish the stones, made it a very wet, cold and at times miserable job. This Woodland Park business was one of only two in the state of Colorado that provided polished granite stone.

Owen “Duke” Williamson (1917-1993) bought the shop in September of 1964. He had been in the granite business since 1935 and was also the last owner of the shop that actually produced memorials. A lot of paychecks were generated from that long-ago business and it put lots of food on many tables in Woodland Park.

I helped every now and then in the shop on Saturday nights cutting the big blocks of stone. Duke’s son Mark and I would have to stay awake all night, making sure the water kept flowing; otherwise, the expensive cutting wire would break.

I’ve sometimes imagined what that building would be today if it were still standing. Through its many windows it had an unobstructed view of Pikes Peak. With its high open ceiling with large bare beams, I think it would have been the perfect setting for a brewery and restaurant, “The Pikes Peak Granite Company Brewery and Café.”