A 57-ton marble block cut nearly two years ago from the Yule Marble Quarry to replace the cracked Tomb of the Unknowns sits in the quarry parking lot – now covered in snow – as its fate undergoes weighty debate in federal offices.
Officials at Arlington National Cemetery, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Park Service and several historical associations decided last fall that the original Yule marble on the monument should be replaced rather than repaired or left as is.
That decision came 43 years after the cracks first became a concern, 16 years after an architectural firm determined the cracks would continue to worsen, nearly seven years after a Glenwood Springs man offered to donate new marble, and 15 months after quarry workers cut the lustrous white, gold-veined replacement for the icon.
That decision by no means ended the complicated process or sealed the deal for the block of rock sitting in Marble, 20 miles southwest of Aspen.
Instead, that decision kicked off a new round of delays as the agencies involved decide what to do with the old stone. It has strong sentimental value to the 4million annual visitors to Arlington.
Decisions, decisions
The agencies, meeting again this week on the matter, must decide whether other plaza improvements should be made in tandem with installing a new stone. They must make sure the project meets all National Environmental Policy Act requirements.
Once those matters are settled, they must set up bid requirements for procuring, inscribing, transporting and installing the replacement.
The Marble block will be in the running as a replacement, but nothing is guaranteed.
“It’s taken a little bit longer than it should have,” said Arlington National Monument Superintendent John Metzler Jr., who hopes work on the stone will be underway before the year’s end.
For John Haines, the Glenwood Springs retiree who has been trying to donate the marble from Marble, the wait is increasingly frustrating.
“I told them I would drive it out and put it in the parking lot at Arlington,” Haines said. He wasn’t entirely joking.
Donor ready to truck
Haines said if the federal government decides to accept his $70,000 marble donation, he has a flatbed truck lined up and plans to deliver the stone.
The original sarcophagus on a hilltop overlooking Washington also met with delays.
In 1921 Congress approved the burial of the remains of an unidentified World War I soldier at that site. The marble tomb wasn’t placed above the grave until a decade later.
Through the years, unidentified casualties of other wars were placed in the plaza, and the tomb, which is also called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers but was never officially named, became a symbol of the sacrifice of all fallen soldiers.
“I feel real confident it (the tomb) is going to be replaced with real precision and done right,” said Brian Andelin, executive director of the Phoenix- based Art Monument Foundation, which is consulting with Arlington on the replacement.
Andelin said he hopes the marble from Marble is chosen.
“There are a lot of details to work out yet,” he said. “But out of respect to the original architects, it should be the same marble.”
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
