Quarry History

• 1881: Congress appropriated $30,000 to build a prison in Sioux Falls to serve Dakota Territory.
  
  
• 1883: Three acres purchased to be used as a stone quarry, creating the first prison industry of the Dakota Territory. Inmates were paid 20 cents a day to quarry the stone for additional buildings on the prison compound and the wall that would surround the yard of the state penitentiary.
  
  
• 1885: Chelsea Hubbard and William McBain, who worked the Bennett Quarries just south of the present-day stockyards, were said to have the largest quarry operation in the county, employing the most men and producing the most cut stone.
  
  
• 1887: “It is said by building experts that the Sioux Falls stone has no superior. It is of a beautiful color and perfectly indestructible.” - Daily Argus-Leader, April 15, 1887
  
  
• 1887: C.W. Hubbard founds Sioux Falls Granite Company to extract and ship Sioux quartzite stone. William McBain also owns quarry holdings in the same area, south of the stockyards. Stone from the quarries was used to build Sioux Falls landmarks, including the Old Courthouse Museum, Jones Seed Co. Warehouse, Tri-State Creamery Building and Milwaukee Railroad Freight Depot.
  
  
• 1893: The property known as the Bennett Quarry idles.
  
  
• 1910: The Wisconsin Granite Co. takes over Bennett Quarry. The quarry closes after the end of World War I.
  
  
• 1912: Sioux Falls opens its first concrete paved street, replacing quartzite paver roads.
  
  
• 1926: Voters approve a request by the Milwaukee Railroad Company to vacate several streets downtown to expand their operations, driven in part by the success of the quarry operations in the area, including the Hubbard and McBain quarries. Eventually, the railroad acquired portions of the Hubbard and McBain quarry grounds.
  
  
• 1930s: WPA projects during the Great Depression reopen the quarries, and stone is used to build the Federal Building, Washington High School and the annex north of the Minnehaha County Courthouse.
  
  
• 1933: Workmen begin removing loose stones from the abandoned quarry.
  
  
• 1960s: Falls Park remained an underused and underappreciated park space for the next 30 years.
  
  
• 1995-2004: City of Sioux Falls continues acquiring land near Falls Park.
  
  
• 2004: Ribbon cutting for Phillips to the Falls project, which connected the dead-end Phillips Avenue to Falls Park Drive.
  
  
• 2023-2026: The City’s Falls Park Master Plan is developed, identifying the quarry as a priority site for revitalization. The Sioux Falls City Council approved the plan in February 2026.
  
  
• 2026: Bezos Earth Fund, through the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation, grants $15 million to turn the quarry site into a community park.

Source: Siouxland Heritage Museum