WHY THE QUARRY WAS OFTEN REFERRED TO AS THE “PEEKSKILL QUARRY”
One of the most confusing aspects of the quarry’s history is its name. Although there was never any question that the quarry was located in Yorktown, throughout much of its history the Mohegan Quarry was often identified as the “Peekskill Quarry” and its granite sometimes referred to as “Peekskill Golden Granite.” References to the quarry being in the Town of Yorktown were few and far between. As recently as 2014, in a Master’s thesis about buildings that utilized granite from the quarry, the quarry was referred to as a Peekskill quarry — even though when the author needed permission to visit the abandoned quarry, she contacted the Town of Yorktown.
The misidentification of the quarry’s location likely stems from several factors:
- The Mohegan Quarry was one of five quarries within a five-six mile radius of Peekskill that were grouped together and labeled “Peekskill granite” in New York State Museum Bulletins that reported on mining and quarrying throughout the state.
- During the early decades of the 20th century, the region’s population was centered in Peekskill, not Yorktown; Yorktown was a sleepy farming community with a 1910 population of 3,020 while Peekskill, with a population of 15,245, was the region’s commercial hub from which the quarry’s granite was shipped. The population disparity didn’t change much over the next 20 years when Yorktown’s 1930 population dropped to 2,724 while Peekskill’s grew to 17,125.
- The companies that owned the quarry considered themselves Peekskill businesses and had Peekskill addresses. Grenci & Ellis, the owners of the quarry during its most productive years, even identified the quarry as being in Peekskill in its 1930s promotional brochure.
Read about The Three Phases of the Quarry’s History