The quiet village of Hall Quarry in the Town of Mount Desert was once the center of industry for Mount Desert Island. In 1870, a Belfast man named Cyrus James Hall founded the Standard Granite Company on the shore of Somes Sound halfway between Somesville and Southwest Harbor. The fine quality of stone and deep water access right at the shore contributed to the speedy growth and success of the quarrying operations there.
Hall began his enterprise with a pair of oxen, six employees and a few primitive tools. Positive of a quality product, he traveled far and wide, placing bids on many government jobs. Somes Sound granite was used in the construction of the United States Mint in Philadelphia, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., both the Court House and the Customs House in Philadelphia, Hartford River Bridge in Connecticut, the Bank of Commerce in St. Louis and the John Hancock Insurance Building in Boston. Post Offices, churches, big banks and Federal office buildings were all using granite by the end of the 19th century.
“The Quarry”, in its heyday, employed over 2000 men. Immigrants came in droves to work the quarries. Swedes went to work cutting the granite block out. Scottish and Italians aided in the more precise stone cutting and polishing work. Other stone cutting companies sprouted up in the hills around the village. One quarry cut nothing but cobblestone for paving city streets. Pink granite came from the south side of the village, grey from the north.
Clandestine neighborhoods of tiny shacks and boarding houses like Bed Bug Boulevard, Peanut Row and Macaroni Hill made up a village that was served by three company stores. Hall's Standard Granite Co. store was the largest of the three with a dance hall upstairs where traveling minstrel shows or local musicians would perform. Even at the height of the operation, the quarrying business was seasonal, so winter meant hard times.
Two and three masted schooners sailed into the Sound for orders of granite for such far away places as Washington, Philadelphia and New York. There was even a shipwreck in the spring of 1898 when one fully loaded schooner, The Delphini, plowed right into an iceberg and went down just beyond the quarry. Her masts were visible at low tide until the Coast Guard removed the navigational hazard during World War II.
The nameless village that grew big enough to have a Post Office became Hall, Maine. Later on, it became Hall Quarry—as it remains today.