Written by Mike Warner, Michigan Karst Conservancy June, 1992 rev. 12/14/94 (text), October 1996 (graphic version) (mwarner@cyberspace.org)

Presenting Fiborn Quarry

The Quarry In Active Days

Memories and records of Fiborn Quarry tell many distinct stories. Gathered here are some of those stories of Fiborn Quarry; brief accounts of its founding, people, natural features and operation. Alongside are examples of the documents from which the stories are drawn and photographs from Fiborn Quarry's past and present that illustrate these accounts. (This display is located at Fiborn Quarry in Mackinac County, Michigan.)

The wider circumstances of many regional and statewide influences on life and the land including railroading, lumbering, and immigration can be seen reflected in the details of Fiborn Quarry's own story. Their connected roles in the history of Michigan play through this place of little more than one square mile.

"Junior" Shoemaker, living at the quarry around 1930

Circumstances moved beyond Fiborn Quarry as a site of industry and livelihood. Traces of its history dispersed as the people did, leaving little record at the site other than the quarry and the fading remnants left in the wake of a vanished community.

Reminders Of Industry

This sketch offers an impression of Fiborn Quarry. It is a guide to be used to draw a general sense of a place in time, by exploring through documents, photographs, memories and the visitor's imagination the intricacies of life in one small place. Details of people and place as brought together here are being asked to speak, to tell about Fiborn Quarry in order that those who have an interest might learn something about, and from, its story.

Teacher Elta LaCount (Erskine) and her students in the early 1920's

Source Information

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