Sylacauga’s past, and its future, lie in Marble By David Story Photos by Jerry Martin
Giuseppi Moretti’s “Miss Alabama”
The word “marble” is derived from the Greek word, meaning “crystalline rock” or “shining stone” and has been prized for its use in sculptures since classical times. For sculptors, such as those drawn to Sylacauga’s annual Marble Festival, marble’s waxy look gives “life” to marble sculptures of the human body. Did Michelangelo not say, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”? Just as the tradition of Ancient Rome was inundated with multicolored marble on floors and other surfaces, so is Sylacauga steeped in a history of the same stone, with its home-quarried marble on buildings and local sculptures. The significance of Sylacauga marble lies in its whiteness and its being just one of two sources for Carrarra marble, as Mayor and Mrs. Sam Wright discovered in 2008 when they walked the streets of Pietrasanta near Carrarra, Italy, talking with local sculptors. According to the Sylacauga Marble Festival Chairman Dr. Ted Spears, the future of Sylacauga’s marble industry is inextricably linked with the legacy of the local quarries, the continuation of the Marble Festival’s annual events, and the future of the 21st-century marble industry. To understand Sylacauga’s place in the tradition of marble, one must realize the Sylacauga Sylacauga Magazine 2011 • Focused on the Future
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