In its heyday in the 1930s, the mining town of Gantts Quarry, Ala., had more than 500 residents and was lined with small, wooden company houses for the miners. Some people even lived in railway boxcars converted into living space, according to a July 21, 1991, article in The Birmingham News.

See photos of the town and the quarry in the gallery at the top of this story.

In 1998, the town had seven residents, enough to elect a mayor and make up a town council. Then, the population dwindled to two, which made electing a mayor seem a bit pointless but they did it anyway – the last residents were Mayor Jimmy Reynolds, a former quarry manager, and his wife, said historian Billy Atkinson.

By 2000, no one lived in Gantts Quarry and it was unincorporated. Today, a few abandoned homes and a renovated post office remain – along with the massive quarry, of course.

The Talladega County settlement on the outskirts of Sylacauga was formed in the 19th century as a company town for workers who extracted Alabama’s rare white marble from the quarry. It is named for Dr. Edward Gantt, who recorded his discovery of marble in 1820. Gantt was a physician who accompanied Gen. Andrew Jackson through the area in 1814.

The marble deposit he discovered was about 32 miles long by 1.5 miles wide. It was more than 400 feet deep.

The town once had a general store, a school, a hotel, two churches, a number of homes built by the mining company and even a nine-hole golf course, according to The Birmingham News.

The ca.-1905 post office building was moved to the grounds of the B.B. Comer Museum in Sylacauga in 2011. The preserved building was listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 2023.

Marble of rare quality

Mining historian Craigger Browne said the marble from the quarry “developed a reputation for its for its lustrous quality and fine texture.” It was a favorite of sculptors.

“It has been used in many famous buildings and works of art. Examples include Gutzon Borglum’s bust of Abraham Lincoln in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capital Building,” Browne said. “The ceiling of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, is made of Sylacauga marble because of its translucent properties.”

Guiseppe Moretti, the sculptor who created the statue of Vulcan in Birmingham, quarried some marble there in the 1920s to use in his sculptures. “He hauled a sample block of the gleaming white stone back to his studio in Birmingham and carved ‘The Head of Christ,’ a work that he carried with him to every place that he lived for the rest of his life,” according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. The work is now on display at the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery.

Sylacauga hosts a Magic of Marble Festival each April to showcase the beauty of the marble and the work of various sculptors.

Observation Point

The quarry no longer produces huge slabs of marble. The property is owned by Imerys, a company that makes “mineral-based specialty solutions,” according to the company website.

“In addition to marble, a variety of products for agricultural, pharmaceutical, chemical, and other uses are produced from the pure calcium carbonate deposits,” Browne said. “Currently, Imerys and Omya, Inc. operate plants in Sylacauga” to create these products.

Imerys erected an observation platform in 2012 so people could look down into the water-filled quarry. Called Imerys Gantt’s Quarry Observation Point, the platform is open during daylight hours.