John Aloysius Green
John Aloysius Green | |
|---|---|
| Born | Error: Invalid birth date for calculating age Moore Parish, County Roscommon, Ireland |
| Occupation(s) | Quarry owner, politician |
| Years active | 1860s–early 1900s |
| Known for | Founder of Champion quarries in Stone City, Iowa; Iowa State Senator (1892–1904) |
John Aloysius Green (born December 10, 1844, in Moore Parish, County Roscommon, Ireland) emigrated to Boston in 1852. There, he attended public schools and apprenticed as a stone cutter. After spending ten years working in the monument industry, he broadened his expertise to include granite, sandstone, and limestone materials.
By 1865, Green relocated westward, briefly settling in Joliet, Illinois. In 1867, he was employed at the Rock Island Arsenal and later that year contributed to cutting stone for Union Pacific Railroad bridges near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Returning to Joliet during the winter months, he soon founded the Champion quarries in what would become Stone City, Iowa—a town that developed around his business and played a key role in enhancing the economy of Jones County.
Throughout nearly five decades, Green’s quarrying operations amassed sales exceeding $4.5 billion. By 1896, approximately 1,000 workers were employed at Stone City's quarries, which annually produced stone valued at $3.75 million. From 1869 through the 1890s, Green managed three principal quarries—"Champion 1," "Champion 2," and "John Allen"—employing labor sourced from Anamosa State Penitentiary. These quarries supplied premium stone throughout the Midwest region. His business interests also included additional quarries located in Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri, as well as masonry supply and sand dredging enterprises centered in Cedar Rapids.
In 1875, Green married Ellen Green from Joliet; together they had ten children: Mary, Anna, Joseph, twins Ellen and James, Leo, Rose, Agnes, Robert, and Josephine.
Besides Champion quarries, Green developed quarry sites along Buffalo Creek and the Wapsipinicon River in Iowa, plus locations in Wasioja Township (Minnesota) and Shuster (Missouri). He was a pioneer in introducing hydraulic power for quarry stripping within the United States and innovated large-scale blasting methods using black powder to efficiently extract thousands of tons of stone.
In his political career, Green served as a Republican Iowa State Senator from 1892 to 1904 representing Jones and Cedar counties. Though he was unsuccessful in his 1904 Congressional bid, he surpassed his party’s ticket by 2,760 votes within Iowa’s fifth district.
External links
- https://web.archive.org/web/20081031065631/http://iowajones.org/bio/biopage.htm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20080509185935/http://www.mtmercy.edu/stone/colony.htm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20080703175115/http://www.thestonecityfoundation.org/index.htm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110108121516/http://www.uiowa.edu/~calvin/quarry_7.htm
- People from Jones County, Iowa
- Artists from County Roscommon
- Politicians from Boston
- 19th-century American businesspeople
- Republican Party Iowa state senators
- 1844 births
- American mining businesspeople
- 1920 deaths
- Politicians from County Roscommon
- Businesspeople from County Roscommon
- Irish emigrants to the United States
- 19th-century members of the Iowa General Assembly
- 20th-century members of the Iowa General Assembly