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Beaver Dam (Maryland)

Beaver Dam is a former marble quarry in Cockeysville, Maryland, that was a source of stone for many notable buildings in the United States, including the United States Capitol and the Washington Monument. Flooded since the 1930s, the site is now a local swimming and recreational club. While there were dozens of small, abandoned quarries with various owners in the area — collectively known as the "Beaver Dam quarries" — the large quarry pit that is now a lake was the principal one. It has been called Maryland's "most celebrated building-stone quarry."

Quarry
The dolomitic marble is known to geologists as Cockeysville Marble. It was considered some of the finest quality in the world according to government experts, noted for its purity of color and hardness suitable for building material and monuments. Benjamin Latrobe ranked the Cockeysville stone over Italian Carrara marble. Stone was loaded onto wagons and pulled by oxen to the nearby Northern Central Railway in Cockeysville. The quarry site was connected to a rail spur in around 1866 to facilitate moving the massive columns for the expansion of the United States Capitol. In 1878, Hugh Sisson ("Marble King of Baltimore"), acquired the property and other surrounding quarries and began using the latest technology of machine-powered derricks, shovels, and diamond bit drills, significantly increasing production. For many other notable buildings, the stone is only identified as being "Cockeysville Marble" or coming from Baltimore County (Hannibal 2020 for a comprehensive list). While the specific quarry is unknown in these cases, it could have come from the Beaver Dam quarry. Marble was also used in numerous homes, businesses, and cemeteries, including Baltimore's iconic rowhouse marble steps. About a half mile south lies Texas Quarry, a large active quarry operated by Martin Marietta. It is located in the former town of Texas, Maryland, which later merged into Cockeysville. Texas Quarry is of a similar age to the Beaver Dam quarries and was also a major producer of building marble. Its most notable use was for the Washington Monument, where a visible difference in the stone reveals the two quarries' distinct contributions. The whiter marble of the monument's bottom 152 feet came from Texas Quarry, while the warmer-toned marble of the next 390 feet is from Beaver Dam quarry. Today, Texas Quarry primarily produces aggregates such as gravel. ==Lake==
Lake
A natural inflow of groundwater inundated the Beaver Dam quarry, exceeding 100,000 gallons a day, which required considerable pumping to keep the pit empty. When the quarry business slowed in the 1920s and declined around the time of the Great Depression, the owners stopped pumping. The original northern portion of the quarry (next to Beaver Dam Rd) filled to about 90-feet, and the newer southern portion to about 40-feet deep. The 30-acre Beaver Dam Swim Club was originally leased by Mark P. Hanley and the property was purchased by him after World War II. The club includes two swimming pools, a volleyball court, and picnic areas, most of which were built in the 1950s. None are considered historic by the state. It runs alongside the eastern edge of the spring-fed quarry lake. == References ==
Source: Wikipedia ↗
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