Granville: Colored Slate Capital of the World (nickname)

Granville, New York, has many slate quarries, and the area has been called “Slate Valley.” Granville has been nicknamed the “Colored Slate Capital of the World” and the “Colored Slate Center of the World.” “The fascinating names of the colors quarried here include: New York Unfading Red, Sea Green, Varigated Purple, and Unfading Purple,” Yahoo! Travel noted in 2015.
 
The first Granville quarries opened around 1853. The “Colored Slate Capital of the World” nickname has been cited in print since at least 1980.
 
     
Wikipedia: Granville, New York
Granville, New York is a town on the eastern border of Washington County, abutting Rutland County, Vermont. It is part of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town population was 6,456 at the 2000 census.
 
The town of Granville contains a village that also bears the name Granville. Granville is named for John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville.
 
Granville has been called the “Colored Slate Capital of the World.” Quarries in the town mine slate that comes in colors such as green, gray, gray black, purple, mottled green and purple, and red.
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Extensive slate deposits were located in 1846 in nearby Fair Haven, and in 1850 more slate deposits were found in Middle Granville. The first Granville slate quarries opened around 1853. The first slate deposits had been located in 1839 and were used for local construction.
     
16 March 1980, Daily News (New York, NY), “Mobile homes: The low-cost housing everybody loves to hate” by Thomas Forbes, pg. 27C, col. 3:
Granville is pleasant enough, but it is not Bronxville. The compound of the Telescope Folding Furniture Co. is hardly a manicured industrial park. The area is the colored slate capital of the country, and quarry pits pock the landscape around the village.
   
31 July 1988, Post-Star (Glens Falls, NY), “World Colored Slate Capital: Granville slate industry’s old ways” by Rob Barendse, pg. B3, col. 2:
GRANVILLE—“Colored slate center of the world.”
 
That’s what the sign says as you drive into the Town of Granville. The slogan happens to be true. Granville and the adjacent Vermont countryside are together the world leader in the production of colored slate tiles and flagstones. Colors mined in the area include sea green, mottled green, red, purple, gray ... and others. Nowhere else in the world is such a variety of slate said to exist.
 
NYS Historic Newspapers
15 September 1988, Greenwich (NY) Journal-Salem (NY) Press, “County offers much to see and do,” pg. 6B, col. 3:
North of Salem on route 22 is GRANVILLE, the colored slate capital of the world, where many slate quarries are still in operation.
         
Google Groups: rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids
African Cichlid Aggression
Robert Scott
1/5/98
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The slate was all free!  I live in upstate NY, about 15 miles from a town that calls itself “The colored slate capital of the world” (Granville, NY).  There are a lot of slate quarries all around my town, and most will let you pick through the scrap piles.  The scraps are peices that broke when being split or sawed, or that have veins of quartz, etc., through them.  The stuff is very nice.  I have an unlimited supply of beautiful slate, in traditional gray, or my choice, red.  Come to think of it, there are three flagstone quarries within five mile of my house, too.
 
Google Groups: rec.knives
razor stones
Robert Scott
10/12/07
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I live in the “Slate Valley” of Washington County, NY, next door to Granville, NY; “The Colored Slate Capital of the World.”
 
Twitter
Tom Peters
@tom_peters
Replying to @Sally_G
@Sally_G Or at least Granville NY (Colored slate capitol of America!)
10:33 PM - 5 Apr 2010
         
Slate Valley Museum (Granville, NY)
20 Objects, 20 Years of Sharing Slate Valley Stories:
The Industry, The People, & The Stone
June 5—November 7, 2015
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The Stone:
The story of slate in the Slate Valley actually began millions of years ago when tectonic mountain-building forces exerted tremendous heat and pressure on our region. This process and the geologic elements that existed here created slate, a metamorphic rock in a plethora of colors, making this area unique throughout the entire world and known as the “Colored Slate Capital.”
 
Yahoo!
The 50 Funniest Town Slogans in the U.S.
Yahoo Travel June 30, 2015
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New York
Granville is the undisputed “Colored Slate Capital of the World.” The fascinating names of the colors quarried here include: New York Unfading Red, Sea Green, Varigated Purple, and Unfading Purple.
 
NYup.com (March 2017)
What’s in a name? 14 cool nicknames for Upstate New York towns, cities
By Chuck D’Imperio
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Granville: “Colored Slate Capital of the World”
This community, located in Washington County along the border with Vermont, is the only place in the world where naturally-colored slate has been mined for over a century. Slate dug up in Granville is naturally red, grey, black, mottled green, purple and other colors. A Slate Museum here tells of this village’s quirky claim to fame.
   
Saratoga (NY) Living
March 30, 2018
Slate Valley: This Upstate New York Town Is Known As ‘The Colored Slate Capital Of The World’
Granville, NY, is the top attraction along a 24-mile stretch with an overabundance of the metamorphic rock.
by MOLLY CONGDON
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Nearly 170 years ago, the industry first began to gather steam, along the New York-Vermont border, stretching from Granville, NY—about an hour northeast of Saratoga Springs—all the way up to Fair Haven, VT. The industry was able to flourish because of extended railroad lines, and to this day, roughly 25 companies still mine several quarries in the region.
 
The area’s standout star? Granville, which has been dubbed The Colored Slate Capital of the World because of its stockpiles of the rock, which comes in the rich hues of purple, green and red. “We like to say that there is a little bit of Granville all over the world, because slate roofs and sidewalks can be found everywhere from village squares to churches to major universities and beautiful homes,” says Krista Rupe, Executive Director of the Slate Valley Museum, one of just two of its kind in the world. (The other’s in Wales.) “Even the Pentagon has a slate roof made from Slate Valley slate.”