Abrupt shutdown: New owner closes Concord’s Swenson granite quarry after 140 years | History

Kurt Swenson was the fourth generation of his family to own and operate the Swenson Granite Co. and its quarry on Rattlesnake Hill in Concord. The company has been a part of New Hampshire history and landscape since 1883.

Swenson held every position from quarryman to president and CEO of the company before selling it to a private equity firm in 2016. In a recent presentation at the New Hampshire Historical Society, he brought the past to life through a series of historic photos and his own memories of the company that still bears his family’s name.

Swenson began by asking the approximately 100 people present how many of them had been his customers.

It seemed like everyone in the room raised their hand, bringing a smile to Swenson’s face.

“I’ve always believed that a company’s most important assets are its employees and its customers,” Swenson told the gathering. “It’s the customers and the employees that matter.”

But when he announced that the granite quarry had closed, there were audible gasps.

Swenson Granite’s retail stores will remain open and the curb cutting business in Concord continues to generate profits.

But the quarrymen have left.

Brian Wheeler worked as a quarryman at Swenson Granite for nearly 23 years. He was just weeks away from retirement when he received notice that the Concord quarry would close, effective June 6.

“It was like turning off a light switch,” he said.

He thought the work would last. “I figured if I worked with stone, it would be there for a long time,” Wheeler said.

“The quarry was a place where if you worked hard and got along well, you had to have some common sense, but you didn’t necessarily have to be well-read or well-written,” he said.

He’ll be fine, but I feel sorry for the others, Wheeler said. Sometimes you can’t get a job right away.

“We need to create jobs for people who can’t find a place everywhere.”

Kurt Swenson and his brother Kevin worked in the quarry as teenagers.

“It was hard work,” he said. “You were sweaty and hot. So you had a lot more respect for the people who did it than if you had never done it.”

It’s allowed the brothers to continue to appreciate their employees, he said. “We feel like we need to make sure these people are doing well. They’ve worked hard, they’ve worked for us for years.”

When Swenson sold the company in 2016, he gave employees $500 for each year of service. One longtime employee received a check for $20,000.

“Their company has always been employee-friendly,” Swenson said in an interview. “It’s pretty simple, frankly: If you’re loyal to them, they’ll be loyal to you, it’s that simple.”

Swenson Granite was founded in 1883 by Kurt’s great-grandfather, John Swenson. “He was from Sweden and didn’t speak a word of English,” he said. But someone persuaded him to move to Concord, New Hampshire, and get into the granite business.

Swenson donated photographs and memorabilia from the family business to the New Hampshire Historical Society, where he is a longtime board member. This includes the original 1883 bill of sale for the “stone sheds” and their contents, transferred for $750 by Charles E. Ballard of Concord to John Swenson.

“At that time, we didn’t have any quarries or factories,” Swenson says. “It was just a stone manufacturing business.”

Things changed quickly. The Swensons bought their first quarry in Hollis in 1885, then the granite quarry in Concord in 1904.

An early 20th-century photograph shows a horse-drawn cart carrying a load of granite. Back then, it was best to wait until the ground froze to make it easier for horses to transport it, Swenson said.

“Things have changed a lot since then,” he said.

Over the years, Swenson Granite Co. opened other quarries in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Canada. “Swenson always bought things that were going out of business because they were cheaper that way,” he said.

Concord granite is gray — the type of granite seen in public buildings and curbs — and it became the company’s staple.

Swenson granite was used to build parts of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Library of Congress, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Pentagon and Civil War monuments.

The world-class curb plant atop Rattlesnake Hill is still in operation. “It’s probably the most modern and efficient curb plant in the country,” Swenson said.

But today, the granite it processes is trucked in from Vermont and Maine.

The company never really got into the granite countertop business, Swenson said.

“We didn’t have the colors that women wanted,” he said.

As markets changed, Swenson Granite bought quarries around the country that offered other granite colors sought by architects, such as pink and black. But stonemasons in Italy had an advantage, with equipment that could cut granite finer than the New Hampshire company could do.

“It was a very, very difficult business to run given the level of competition the Italians imposed on us,” he said.

By the 1970s, the company was struggling. “It’s a miracle we survived, let’s put it that way,” he told the audience at the Historical Society.

Swenson had attended college and law school and was working as an attorney. But when his family needed him, he took a leave of absence and became executive vice president and general counsel for the granite company.

In 1979, after his father died, Swenson became president and CEO, and the company celebrated its 100th anniversary under his leadership. That was also the year the company purchased the Rock of Ages quarry in Barre, Vermont, a much larger operation. “Barre granite is probably the finest memorial granite in the world,” he said.

Over the next few years, they opened additional retail stores in New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

With the idea of ​​getting into the retail monument business, they took Rock of Ages public, even though Swenson Granite in Concord remained private and focused on the landscaping business. They bought quarries in Georgia and retail monument operations around the country. “That was going to give us a huge advantage. We would control most of the North American gray granite export market,” he said.

But their ambitious plan failed, he said. “It was a disaster.”

They eventually sold the retail monument stores and then bought Rock of Ages in 2010.

Swenson, who has two adult sons and two granddaughters, said the younger generation isn’t interested in joining the business. “They’re interested in much more exciting things,” he said.

And the industry is changing, Swenson said. “The world’s great buildings are no longer all built in the United States,” he said. “They’re all essentially sawed and cut in Italy or China.”

“You finally come to the conclusion that the only good solution for us is to sell.”

In 2016, Swenson sold the company to TorQuest, a large private equity firm in Canada, and its partners.

In 2022, they sold to Birch Hill Equity Partners, which quietly closed the Rattlesnake Hill quarry on June 6.

Swenson said he had no advance notice that the new owners would close the quarry. He learned the news from a longtime employee. “He called me and said, ‘They’re going to close it.'”

“I think he was more worried about me,” he said.

Wheeler, a retired quarryman, said he also felt bad for the Swenson family.

“These people have been so generous,” he said. “I’m sure they’re heartbroken that the place is no longer operating.”

What is Swenson most proud of in his long career?

“I think we’ve managed to get this far,” Swenson said. “When you think about it, all those years, from 1883 to 2016, that’s a pretty good performance for a family business.”

Despite the challenges facing the industry, Swenson believes the decision to close the Concord quarry is “short-sighted.” He is optimistic that it will one day reopen.

“Because what are you going to do in the future?” he asked. “Granite doesn’t grow on trees.”