Birdseye Marble Quarry

The "marble" here isn't marble at all: it's limestone full of ancient algae. Sixty million years ago, in a freshwater lake that covered central Utah, algae grew in rounded balls around snails and twigs; hardened into golden-brown stone, those concretions are the "birdseyes" that name it. Because it takes a high polish, the building trade calls it marble, though geologists know better. Quarried in these red ledges from the 1880s to the 1940s, it dressed Utah's proudest interiors — most visibly the Gold Room of the State Capitol — and traveled east to state and federal buildings.

What the plaque says

Looking east to the red ledges you can see the quarry, originally operated by the Mormon Church and others in the 1880's to the 1940's as the Nebo Rock Works, Thistle Rock Works and Birdseye Marble Quarry. The stone polishes to a high degree and is prized by jewelers and builders. Stone from the quarry is in the Utah State Capitol, the Mormon Chapel in Washington, D.C, the Lincoln Memorial,and other state and federal buildings Thanks to The Road Commission Manti-LaSall National Forest The people of Birdseye

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Payson Lakes — 5.9 mi
  Three alpine lakes in the pines, twelve miles up Payson Canyon
• Thistle Landslide — 6.6 mi
  The ruins of a town destroyed by a massive landslide in 1983
• Nebo Loop Summit — 10 mi
  The byway's 9,300-foot high point, with Utah Valley spread out below
• Devil's Kitchen — 13 mi
  A pocket of red-rock hoodoos high in the green Wasatch — a "little Bryce Canyon"

More markers nearby

• Given Family Massacre — 7.8 mi
• Pond Town Fort — 11 mi
• Little Diamond Battle- Battle of Diamond Fork — 12 mi
• Pioneer Cemetery — 12 mi