Quincy Quarries' Rock Climbers and Boston City Views

After a brisk 6-mile hike around the Blue Hills today, our AMC group took a side trip to Quincy Quarries. As it was a beautiful sunny day, there were quite a few rock climbers there. Today the Quincy Quarries are known as an excellent place to rock climb. And about 10% of the Big Dig's dirt was used to fill in the largest quarry.

In their heyday, the quarries yielded granite that was used to:

1) Build Boston's King's Chapel in 1749-1754. King's Chapel, is still standing on the corner of School and Tremont Streets in Boston and was at that time the greatest stone construction ever undertaken in Boston, and possibly in the country.
2) Build the Bunker Hill Monument.
3) Build the country's first railroad, in 1826. The railroad was used to transport the 3,000 tons of Quincy Granite used in the Bunker Hill Monument to the water. The raised bed of the old railroad is still visible in the woods near the quarry.

The granite was prized for it's seeming imperviousness to the elements and the fact that when it was polished or sandblasted, the text was much clearer and longer-lasting than when it was hammered.

It's unfortunate that there's so much graffiti on the rock faces. But at least the rusting hulks of old cars and bodies were fished out several years ago when the Big Dig dirt was piled there.