Amberg is located in Northeastern Wisconsin about 60 miles north of Greenbay in Marinette County. The Amberg-Athelstane Granite is part of the Wisconsin Magmatic Terrane. The Wisconsin Magmatic Terrane is an area formed by a tectonic plate collision at about 1850 Ma. marked by the Niagara Fault Zone. The Amberg Granite is one of the most extensive in Wisconsin. It is well known for its great variety of color and texture. The two most common types are a fine-grained gray granite and a course-grained red granite known as “Amberg red”. These granites were a valuable commodity in the late 1800’s early 1900’s, causing quarries to pop up in the area. There were several main companies in the Amberg area during that time. The Amberg Granite Company was the first in the area and later, the Pike River Granite Company, which formed in large part due to poor working conditions at the Amberg Granite Company. The Amberg Granite Company was owned by William Amberg of Chicago and consisted of quarry operations in Amberg – the Argyle, Martindale,the Athelstane and Aberdeen. The Argyle and the Martindale quarries produced the fine-grained gray granite and the Aberdeen quarry produced the “Amberg red”. The Athelstane produced a gray granite, but course grained, similar in texture to the Amberg red. Much of their granite was used in Chicago for curbing blocks and street paving. It was also used for buildings such as, the Capital building in Minnesota, and buildings in Chicago and Cincinnati. The Pike River company produced primarily the fine-grained gray granite and much of it was sold as monumental stone because of its strength and attractiveness. However in 1929, 500-600 cars of this stone was sold to the Universal Granite Company of Milwaukee to be used as breakwater stone. Although, once a thriving, profitable businesses, there are no longer any active quarries operating in the Amberg area. More about the history of these quarries and the surrounding area can be found at the Amberg Museum complex, this is located in the town of Amberg on Marinette County V, right off of Highway 141.
