Granite museum gets tools Cutting equipment given to MDI facility

BANGOR – If one person’s trash is another’s treasure, Steven Haynes stood Tuesday in the middle of his own personal gold mine, surrounded by a dusty machine used to cut and polish granite during the 1930s and a pile of tools once held by the large, calloused hands of workmen 125 years ago.

Haynes is the founder of the Maine Granite Industry Historical Society Museum on Mount Desert Island and an expert on the state’s lost granite industry.

The owners of Bangor Granite Works gave Haynes, who turned 50 this week, dozens of tools dating back to the 1880s and the huge machine that hasn’t been used in more than half a century but is still in working condition.

“This is my birthday present,” said a grinning, dust-covered Haynes. “I’ve been working for this dream since I was 11 years old.”

That dream is to honor the granite industry and tell the story of how Maine men helped build a nation with nothing but crowbars, chisels, hammers and raw physical power, and, later, with the aid of electricity. With the help of Juanita Sprague, the dream was partially realized last fall when the small museum opened in Mount Desert.

Haynes’ father, Blaine Haynes, who has operated an engine repair shop off Route 102 for decades, set aside half of his building so the photographs, quarry logbooks and tools his son has collected for the past decade could be displayed properly. The museum on the Beech Hill Crossroads opened in September.

Once the cutting and polishing machine is dismantled, Haynes plans to have it sandblasted, then put back together, painted and set up in the museum’s basement by the summer of 2004. He plans to add the tools to the displays as soon as he can clean and catalog them.

Dustin Brophy recognized the historical importance of the old equipment when he bought the business in 1998 and decided to use its original name – Bangor Granite Works. Formerly on the Bangor waterfront, the business moved to its current location after the 1911 fire destroyed much of the Queen City’s downtown.

“Steve [Haynes] left his card in my door one day a couple of years ago,” said Brophy. “We decided we wanted to use that space and replace that old machine with modern equipment so we can expand our growing countertop business. I thought of turning it into a little museum myself, but constructing a new building was not feasible. What’s here is just years and years of scrap with no [monetary] value to me.”

Brophy’s “trash” turned out to be just about the best present the Mount Desert man has ever received. And for those who want to study the state’s granite industry, it is the find of a lifetime, said Haynes.

Donations may be sent to the Maine Granite Industry Society Museum, 70 Beech Hill Crossroads, Mount Desert 04660.