14 photos that capture Marble, Colorado, in its heyday

MARBLE, Colo. — The town of Marble reached its zenith when photography was still in its infancy. Like quarrying rock before modern tools, photography back then wasn’t as simple as it is today, when tapping a finger on a glass phone screen will do.

In the early 1900s, electricity was not yet widespread and cars had not yet overtaken horse-drawn carriages. Women had just gained the right to vote in Colorado, still a new state, and Rocky Mountain National Park wasn’t a park, just an area with beautiful mountains. Kodak cameras, which were the first to make photography easy for the masses, were new. Most professional photographers still used glass-plate cameras that had bellows resembling an accordion, which they used to focus their images.

The grit of the workers at the Yule marble quarry in Marble, Colorado — and the rugged charm of the remote Western outpost — was etched into history with enduring pictures made by photographers with those clunky cameras. 

The following 14 photographs — one for each decade since the Yule marble quarry opened in 1885 — capture the story of Marble, bowler caps, avalanches, massive rocks and all. To learn more about Marble, watch the latest “Colorado Experience” episode from Rocky Mountain PBS, “Made in Marble.”