In the early 1880s, William D. Parry and G. D. Griffith were among the successful prospectors who came to the upper Crystal River Valley in search of gold and silver.

 Their profitable silver claims at the southern base of Mt. Daly on Carbonate Creek and other claims attracted miners to the area and prompted the establishment of the town of Marble, which Parry platted in 1881. But it was the potential value of the marble deposits rather than silver that brought the town to life. But finding financial backing to develop these claims proved difficult.

John C. Osgood became interested in the Yule Creek marble deposits as early as 1882 when he came to the Crystal River Valley to investigate the coal resources of the area. In that year, he purchased the coal deposit claim in Coal Basin on the southern Grand Hogback a few miles west of the future site of Redstone. In the next few years, he purchased other coal lands in the valley.

But Osgood was limited in what he could do until he could secure more capital. For over a decade, his Colorado Fuel Company competed with Colonel Channing F. Meek’s Colorado Coal and Iron Company for dominance of the coal and coke trade in western Colorado. Osgood won the competition and in 1892 forced a merger on his terms between his company and Colorado Coal and Iron to form the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), which became the largest corporation in Colorado.

With Meek’s company vanquished, Osgood finally had the resources to execute his plans for the Crystal River Valley. Osgood’s plans included establishing both a large coal and coking enterprise at Redstone and a Yule Creek marble operation.

Osgood began his marble operations by incorporating the Yule Creek White Marble Company. He had a large block of marble cut from his quarry and shipped to Chicago for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, where it won first prize as the finest marble exhibited. The publicity gained from the display was well worth the $1700 cost, for sporadic orders kept the quarry in operation throughout the 1890s.

The Osgood Marble Quarry, as it came to be known, was the source for some of the interior floors, wainscoting and stairways of the Colorado state Capitol in Denver. For lack of a rail connection, all of the quarried Yule marble had to be hauled by wagon over the newly constructed wagon road to Carbondale. The 1893 Silver Panic and the recession that followed forced Osgood to delay the construction of a railroad from Carbondale to Marble.

With better economic times in the late 1890s, CF&I resumed a massive expansion and modernization program that enabled Osgood to renew his Crystal Valley plans. He consolidated several railroad interests to form the Crystal River Railroad. “The Columbine Route,” as the railroad was fondly called, reached Redstone in 1899. With great anticipation, the people of Marble waited for the train to reach them. As the new century began, Osgood, realizing the potential fortune in marble, increased his investment in the Yule Creek White Marble Company to produce marble for the commercial market.

Experts judged Colorado Yule marble the finest in the world surpassing or equaling Italian Carrara. Osgood went into full production and extended the Crystal River Railroad to Marble.

The optimism vanished quickly. After a lengthy corporate battle, Osgood lost control of CF&I to John D. Rockefeller in 1903. Without his Redstone coal and coking enterprise, there was little incentive for him to continue his marble venture. He had made a start but failed to advance the Crystal Valley marble industry to any degree.

Marble would have to wait a few more years for Colonel Channing F. Meek (the title was honorary) to shape its destiny. As president of the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, Meek’s earlier plans to develop a coal and steel enterprise in the Crystal River Valley had been dashed by the merger of his company with Osgood’s Colorado Fuel Company in 1892.

After a hiatus of a few years during which he organized several large corporations, the appeal of Yule Creek marble brought him back to Colorado in 1905. Meek arrived in Marble with the financial backing of several Eastern investors. Charles Austin Bates, president of the Bankers Trust Company of New York, was chief among them.

On April 11, he offered his land purchases to Bates and the other officers of the newly organized Colorado-Yule Marble Company for “$1 and other.” The other included the presidency of the company.

During his tenure as president, the company spent $3m for, among other things, a hydro-electric power plant, a finishing mill that was the largest and most complete in the world, and an electric tramway to connect the quarries to the mill. Meek succeeded where Osgood had failed. Arriving in Marble on 17 June 1909 aboard “The Knickerbocker Special,” the New York investors and their wives agreed with the townspeople that Marble’s destiny was fulfilled.

Darrell Munsell is a native of Hays, Kansas, who received BA and MA degrees in history from Fort Hays State University and a Ph.D. from The University of Kansas. He taught modern British and European history at West Texas A&M University, where he was awarded the title of Emeritus Professor. After his retirement in 1997, he and his wife, Jane, moved to the Crystal River Valley south of Carbondale. He was active in historic preservation work and a member of several regional historical societies. He is the author of five books, including: From Redstone to Ludlow: John Cleveland Osgood’s Struggle against the United Mine Workers of America, Colorado Artist Jack Roberts: Painting the West, Protecting a Valley and Saving a River: The Crystal Valley Environmental Protection Association. He and his wife recently moved back to Texas.