Barre, Vermont
IPTW 2008 venue this year will be in the Town of Barre in the beautiful Green Mountains of central Vermont. A city with special ties to the traditional trades, Barre is the self-proclaimed "Granite Center of the World." The granite industry in Barre was established soon after the War of 1812 and the arrival of the railroad helped it become a major industry. The fame of this vast deposit of granite, which is estimated to be 4 miles long, 2 miles wide and 10 miles deep, encouraged large numbers of people to immigrate to Barre from Italy, Scotland, Spain, Scandinavia, Greece, Lebanon, and Canada, increasing the population from 2060 in 1880, to 6790 in 1890, to 10,000 in 1894. Stone workers from all over Europe created a patchwork of cultures that helped Barre to become the diverse community it is today. Barre is the home of a number of historic attractions including the Barre Opera House, central Vermont's premier performing arts facility. The ongoing restoration of this century-old theater, unused from 1944 to 1982, has made it once again the cornerstone of history and culture downtown, hosting 70-100 events and visited by 20,000 people each year. Other attractions include the Vermont History Center, Aldrich Library, Rock of Ages Quarry, and our host the Vermont Granite Museum. The Barre Historical Society offers tours of Barre's Socialist Party Labor Hall, a National Historic Landmark, as well as Hope Cemetery. Click on the map at left for a detailed map of Barre and the location of the IPTW 2008 venue which will be held in the historic Jones Brothers Granite Shed.

In 1882, the Jones brothers were among the first in Barre to establish both quarries and a manufacturing plant, the first granite company to advertise finished granite monuments nationwide (1927), and, until 1975 was the oldest granite manufacturing company in the country. The company incorporated the entire commercial granite process, from the quarrying of the stone to the finished product. The Jones Brothers Company was described as the largest monumental works in the world, with 100,000 square feet of floor space, 300 men employed, and annual sales of $500,000 in the first two decades of the century. Products from the Jones Brothers plant include memorials of famous people as well as dozens of war monuments throughout the world. Jones Brothers also provided large granite rollers for the newspaper industry; the pulp and paper industry, notably firms such as Kimberly Clark, St. Regis and Northern; as well as the Hershey Chocolate industry, which uses granite rollers to crush cocoa beans into chocolate powder. Guardian Memorials, a well-known name in memorial stones, was established by the Jones Brothers Company in 1925 and remained its hallmark until 1975 when the Jones Brothers Company plant was closed.