In the fall of 1903, Fox and several investors started the Great
American Marble Company. Apparently the money men had noble
aspirations or visions of grandeur. They definitely had other
problems, including financial troubles and interpersonal
conflicts. Turns out that one investor, Robert Ball, was
actually one Charles Mains, a lawyer from Michigan disbarred for
shady shenanigans. Meanwhile, the owners of the Vermont Marble
Company (VMC), in Vermont, had been hearing rumors of “mountains
of marble – ‘quantities beyond calculation’ – and of a quality
such that ‘no other marble in the world was superior.”
Eventually representatives of VMC made it to Marble Island,
verified the rumors, and noted a good potential market for the
stone. D. H. Bixler wrote in 1908 to VMC “As for the future of
Seattle there cannot be much doubt. It seems as though it will
surely grow…The pace has been set for first class buildings and
any that follow will have to have more or less interior marble.”
With VMC now holding the rights to