Buying a Home in St Cloud & Granite Foundations

Remember the tale of the three little pigs? The first one built his home out of straw, the second out of wood and the 3rd out of brick. As children we were taught that the stronger the stuff you use to build with the better and the easier to keep the wolves at bay.

Foundations matter! Especially when you are buying a home.

St Cloud has a granite foundation making it a great place to build your life and call home. Yes, central Minnesota has a foundation of granite in more ways than one! Before you construct anything, including a home, you must build on a strong foundation. We were fortunate enough to have a granite foundation already in place in St. Cloud MN.

Granite is our bedrock in Central Minnesota making it perfect to build houses on. When a home builder starts building a permanent structure the first thing he makes sure to have is a solid foundation. The same goes for your home and your life, when you are looking for a great place to begin make sure you start with a solid foundation.

Welcome to St Cloud MN

If you look around St. Cloud you can see different colors of granite, along with different construction uses. In this article we will discuss the different granite features around town, fun in the quarries, and why it is central to our way of life.We hope you will want to make it part of yours too.

Saint Cloud is The Granite City

St. Cloud, MN is known as Granite City for a good reason. We are built on it. Saint Cloud’s nickname was actually The Nitty Gritty Granite City at the beginning of the 1900’s. Just take a peek at the core sample now being used as a sign for one of our local parks and you will begin to understand the depths of our granite foundation.

The first granite mine in Minnesota started in the Saint Cloud area in 1868 by Breen and Young. There were quarries all around town as St Cloud was blessed with several different types of granite. This was the first industry, and with industry came jobs, and with the jobs came the settlers, and a town was born

Why Granite? Makeup, uses and colors

Granite is an igneous rock, molten material becoming solid, which makes it perfect for construction as it is generally uniform in structure lacking stratification and cleavage planes. In local homes, granite counter tops, shower enclosures, and flooring are among the most popular and marketable features.

Everyday people walk by this sign for Rotary East Park and I am quite sure that there are a few, gotta love rock-hounds, who will realize that this is a core sample. The 3 foot high core sample taken out of one of our local granite quarries. My guess, based on the gray color of the rock, would be that this sample came out of the Minnesota Correctional Facility quarry.

Local granite comes in several colors from Gray to red and even green. Yes, even green. Richmond granite is a unique green charnockitic granite.

Gray granite from the Correctional facility

The Correctional Facility, The Castle, was built in 1889. Located on Highway 10, on St. Clouds southeast side, it began as a quarry. For years it kept the inmates productive. The quarry within within the prisons perimeter remained active allowing the Department of Corrections to sell the granite, and the proceeds helped to fund the costs for housing the prisoners.

Early prisoners even helped build the wall now surrounding the prison grounds. The massive wall still has the distinction of being the largest Granite wall in the world and the second longest wall of any kind built by inmate labor. Number one of course being the Great Wall of China. We believe our local wall will keep this record as the cost to reconstruct a modern version would be quite expensive.

Red Granite at Selke Field

Saint Cloud also has an abundant supply of red granite as you can see from the large wall built around Selke Field in the picture.
The Selke Field wall was constructed in the 1930s as part of the list of projects from the WPA. The red granite wall currently encircles Softball Field used by the St. Cloud State Huskies women’s Softball players, Rugby, Lacrosse, and of course a local favorite Ultimate Frisbee. The wall surrounding Selke Field enclose 10 acres of recreation space and multiple fields used by the University teams and youth sports teams.

Central Minnesota Quarries providing stability and security

Today from Grave markers to the granite fascia on buildings, the granite quarries are still keeping locals busily employed in the area. This industry has been providing for the people of central Minnesota for over 150 years. You can even find some fun relics when home shopping of times gone by from markers, carvings and other bits of historic memorabilia.

The construction industry has relied on Granite from our area for all kinds of projects. The most beautiful in my opinion is the Cathedral in St. Paul. The Cathedral’s exterior walls are Rockville granite from the Clark Quarry in St. Cloud, Minnesota. In fact, granite from St. Cloud can be found in buildings throughout the world.

Fun in Saint Cloud’s Quarries

Typically when you think about scuba diving people think about warmer climates. But did you know you can scuba dive in St.Cloud, and not only in the pools. The granite quarry offers an exciting experience for scuba divers locally. Check out the information from one of our local parks.

Our granite quarries also offer other opportunities such as climbing, diving, mountain bike trails and cross country skiing. All of these activities have a great number of enthusiasts in the area. Not only does granite provide a foundation for stability it also provides a platform for some serious outdoor fun. Not all activities are available in each quarry so you should have a look and see which park quarry is perfect for you.

Look around, Granite is everywhere

Granite is everywhere; statues, historical markers, school yard playground walls and even in many of our St. Cloud homes. It is not just for countertops, and flooring. Granite is what was used to support homes here for since the area first started being built up. We listed one of the original farmsteads in Sauk Rapids with a solid granite foundation. This home was so solid it survived a storm that in the late 1800s took out 1/2 of the town.  Granite basements are a fantastic place to hunker down during a storm and provide amazing support for any structure.

Granite continues to be a vital part of our local economy today. If you come to Saint Cloud you will see evidence all over our community of what lies just beneath the surface, our granite foundation.

Buying a Home and building a life on a solid foundation in St Cloud

When you are building anything from a home to a life we all know that you need a rock solid foundation to begin. Any foundation that is weak or faulty will cause whatever you are building on top of it to be unsteady and it will fail much sooner than it would have given a proper beginning.

St. Cloud has a granite foundation, giving you the perfect place to build your life and buy a home. Let St. Cloud welcome you home with a rock solid granite foundation. And if you are in the market to buy a home, working with a knowledgeable Realtor is the perfect foundation for a worry free move!