Mead's and Ross Marble Quarries
Known as the "Marble City" in the 19 th century, Knoxville has a long history of marble quarrying. Back then the Ross Marble Company paid a small fee for land adjacent to what would soon become the Ijams Sanctuary and opened up a quarry to extract Tennessee Marble, a highly polishable stone that was in great demand for grand buildings as well as national monuments.
