Granite Industry in Llano County

This marker stands in Buchanan Dam, a town that began as a construction camp. The Emery-Peck and Rockwood Development Company started the dam in 1931 and set up a post office and a settlement of several hundred workers, with stores, medical care and recreation. The project was first called Bluffton Dam and then Hamilton Dam, perhaps for an engineer who surveyed the site in 1926 or for G. W. Hamilton of Middle West Utilities. After the 1932 bankruptcy and the federal revival, dam, post office and town took Buchanan's name. The town had 1,688 people in 2000.

What the plaque says

GRANITE INDUSTRY IN LLANO COUNTY Throughout Llano County, large granite outcrops exist. The first granite quarry in Llano County opened in 1888 on the Llano River. When the railroad arrived in 1892, the demand for granite rapidly increased. Italian immigrant Vincenzo Fantozzi Petrick came to Llano County established a quarry and provided stone for use in Texas' coastal jetties. When Buchanan Dam was completed, men and materials were diverted to the war effort and work at Petrick's quarry declined. Llano's granite can be seen in the state capitol, the University of Texas at Austin, the federal building in Kansas City, Missouri, and in many monuments across Texas. Quarries owned by Petrick contributed to Llano County's success. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 3.5 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.
• Inks Lake State Park — 4.3 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 6.6 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Llano County Courthouse Square — 14 mi
  The 1893 Romanesque courthouse on Llano's square, built after a fire at the height of a boom that was meant to make the granite town an iron city.

More markers nearby

• C.S.A. Salt Works — steps away
• Buchanan Dam — 2.7 mi
• Hoover's Valley Cemetery — 4.3 mi
• Longhorn Caverns — 6.5 mi