Books by
Michael Barr
Order Here: |
|
Nothing
lasts forever, but a few things come mighty close. Tupperware comes
to mind. A really bad movie. A cricket match. Road construction on
I-10 between Boerne
and San Antonio. Some
school board meetings. A block of Bear Mountain granite.
Bear Mountain got its name when John Burg, an early Fredericksburg
settler, killed a bear near the summit of a large granite dome four
miles north of Fredericksburg.
People have called that hill Baeren Berg, or in English Bear Mountain,
ever since.
Located on the winding road between Fredericksburg
and Enchanted Rock, Bear
Mountain covers a little over 80 acres at its base. It was probably
formed from a volcanic eruption that took place millions of years
ago. |
Bear Mountain
Photo
by Michael Barr, July 2018 |
At first Bear
Mountain was just another boulder-strewn hill. The value of the granite
as a building material came later.
That's because granite, like a diamond, is no thing of beauty in its
natural form. It is a course-grained lump of unsightly igneous rock.
It is hard and durable, but quite ordinary at first glance.
It is only when expertly cut and polished that granite transforms
into an object of amazing beauty. The warm red color of Bear Mountain
granite is especially handsome. The polished surface is deep, smooth,
shiny and cool to the touch.
Frank Teich, The Sculptor of the Hills, cut and polished the first
slab of Texas granite when building the San Antonio National Bank
and the San Antonio City Hall in the 1880s. He used granite quarried
from Bear Mountain.
There is a lot of granite at Bear Mountain. An article in the Fredericksburg
Standard stated that "Drills sunk into its base were still biting
into the same kind of granite 107 feet below." Experts estimated that
it would take 100 trains, each with 100 cars, 100 years to haul the
mountain away.
The story of the train symbolizes the big problem with granite - the
high cost of transporting the massive granite blocks. Frank
Teich used oxen to drag the granite slabs, loaded on wooden skids,
the 80 miles from Bear Mountain to San
Antonio. The trip took months. Teich eventually had to abandon
the Bear Mountain Quarry because the transportation costs were so
high. |
 |
Granite quarry
on Bear Mountain, Gillespie County, Texas
The Portal
to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu
Courtesy Gillespie County Historical Society |
Other men took
on Bear Mountain believing they could make it pay. Joe Wild quarried
granite at Bear Mountain around the turn of the 20th century, but
the business closed within a year.
Most people in Gillespie
County associate Bear Mountain with the Nagel family. Willie and
Emil Nagel were sons of German immigrants who settled on a stock farm
near Comfort.
They were sculptors and stone cutters who operated a granite yard
in San Antonio. They
cut and polished granite in Llano
and California before buying an interest in Bear Mountain.
Willie and Emil, along with brothers Rudolph and Otto, eventually
bought out the other landowners and acquired complete ownership of
Bear Mountain. Members of the Nagel family quarried Bear Mountain
granite for much of the 20th century. |
Bear Mountain
granite quarry
Photo
by Michael Barr, July 2018 |
Bear Mountain
Quarries Nagel Sign
Photo
by Michael Barr, July 2018 |
Quarrying granite
is difficult and dangerous. In the early years quarrymen drilled a
series of deep holes about 4 inches apart. They drove wedges in the
holes until the granite slab cracked and separated.
In a more modern process called jet-channeling, quarrymen used a wand
that spewed fire and water to cut a narrow groove 20 ft. deep without
drilling holes.
Granite is normally too expensive for general building purposes, so
it is mostly used for headstones, monuments, decorative elements in
commercial buildings and large building foundations. The base of the
1939
Gillespie County Courthouse in Fredericksburg
is made of Bear Mountain granite. |
1913 Cornerstone
of Bear Mountain granite
"A convincing fact that Nagel Bro's have the Best Granite for
building and monumental work."
Photo
by Michael Barr, July 2018 |
One of the largest
blocks of granite quarried at Bear Mountain sits in downtown Dallas.
It forms the base holding the bronze statue of legendary newsman George
Bannerman Dealey, in Dealey
Plaza.
Quite a few of the grand old buildings along Fredericksburg's
Main Street have cornerstones carved out of Bear Mountain red granite.
Some of those cornerstones are already over a hundred years old. Whether
or not they will last forever is yet to be determined. |
©
Michael Barr
"Hindsights"
August 1, 2018 Column
Sources:
"Texas Granite Conquering Even In New York In Competition With
Eastern Granite," Kerrville Daily Times, June 21, 1928.
"Twenty Years of Quarrying at Bear Mountain," Hondo Anvil, November
8, 1924.-
"Bear Mountain, Balanced Rock Real Attraction," Fredericksburg Standard,
April 28, 1971.
"Bear Mountain Quarry in Full-Scale Operation," Fredericksburg Standard,
October 21, 1970. |
Related
Article:
Balanced
Rock by Michael Barr
Balanced Rock was something to see - a 50 ton red granite boulder
10 feet high and 12 feet in diameter resting precariously on three
points. Two of the points were pinnacles only a few inches high
and no bigger around than a man's wrist.
This geological oddity sat on top of Bear Mountain, 4 miles north
of Fredericksburg on Ranch Road 965... more
|
|
|
HOME
