Vintage Hunt Valley-Cockeysville: The Quarry

These days you're more likely to think of it as a nice swimming hole for a summer day, but Beaver Dam is actually a flooded marble quarry.

In this photo, taken during World War I, two people stand at the base of a derrick in the Beaver Dam marble quarry, according to an entry in the Baltimore County Public Library catalog.

The quarry has been flooded since 1934, according to a history of Beaver Dam posted on the swim club's website, when swimmers paid a quarter each to take a dip.

Marble from Cockeysville, specifically from Beaver Dam has been used in a number of national building projects, according the Maryland Geological Survey.

"Cockeysville Marble ... a white, crystalline, metalimestone, most famous for its use in the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. The first 152 feet of the monument, built between 1845 and 1854, were faced with Cockeysville stone from a quarry near Texas, about 12 miles north of Baltimore," according to the Geological Survey website. 

A bit of further reading on the Beaver Dam Swimming Club's history shows that it was marble from Beaver Dam that was used in the Washington Monument both in Washington D.C. and here in Baltimore.

Marble from Beaver Dam was also used to build columns at the Captiol building in D.C. and spires for St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.

A PDF copy of the history of Beaver Dam is attached to this article.

Do you have an interesting bit of Hunt Valley or Cockeysville history to share? Contact editor Nick Gestido: nick.gestido@patch.com.