THE HISTORY OF NAPOLEON GRAY MARBLE: AN AMERICAN HERITAGE STONE NAMED FOR NAPOLEON

Limestone from the Phenix quarries in southern Missouri has been quarried since the 1880s. The stone has been sold under several names: Napoleon Gray Marble (stone cut perpendicular to bedding), Annellen Marble (stone cut parallel to bedding), and Phenix stone (stone used mainly for exterior work). Napoleon Gray has been the premier product of the quarries. At one time the Phenix Marble Company used a silhouette of Napoleon as part of a logo for the stone. Classic French Napoleon Marble has been quarried since the early 1800s from the Ferques Inlier in the Pas de Calais, France, the region used to stage Napoleon’s planned invasion of England. The stone Column of the Grande Armée at the site commemorates this event. The American Napoleon Gray does have some resemblance to the classic French Napoleon Marble in color overall. And both stones belong to the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian Subsystem): respectively the Burlington-Keokuk and the Calcaire Napolèon (Napoleon Limestone). However the stones differ in detail, including color patterns, fossil and stylolite content, and calcite veining. The Phenix quarries supplied Napoleon Gray across North America in the 20^th century, with its greatest production in the 1920s, a period when the building and decorative stone industries were booming across the country. Because of its stone qualities, relatively low price point, and heavy promotion by both Phenix Marble and the Tomkins-Kiel Marble Company, the self-described “Marble headquarters of the world,” Napoleon Gray was one of the most heavily promoted and sold decorative stones in North America during the 1920s. In the 1950s–1970s Carthage Marble promoted the stone in its Marble of the Month series. Although most usage of the stone was for more prosaic uses, such as flooring and bathroom partitions, it was used for wainscotting, flooring and columns in important structures such as the Legion of Honor building in San Francisco and the Missouri Capitol Building, as well as some sculptural items, notably the John Hay monument in Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery. Because of its widespread usage in many structures now about a century old, in the United States as well as some in Canada, and its current availability, the stone can certainly be called a Heritage Stone on the national level.