Redgranite in Waushara County has a colorful history. It was once called a "boom town." The area was called Sand Prairie in the late 1800's and had been settled as farm land. Around Theodore Chipman's trading post were many boulders of hard reddish rock, extending from the yellow sand. These prominent outcroppings of rock were discovered to be mahogany-red granite.
In 1889 six granite quarrymen from Berlin--William Bannerman, John Bannerman, David Horne, Jr., William Horne, William Laing, and George Thackeray--visited Sand Prairie to investigate and examine the granite ledge on the north side of the George H. Cronk farm in the Town of Warren. They decided to buy it. These men were at that time operating a quarry in Berlin under the name of the Berlin Quarry Company.
This paragraph on Redgranite, in the book The Romance of Wisconsin Place Names , states:
"William Bannerman, a Scottish immigrant, first found a red granite formation near Berlin and operated two quarries there for a time. He learned that the hard stone would not split properly in cold weather. He looked around for other deposits and found the very fine rock underlying the five or six farms in an area known as Sand Prairie. Crops could not be raised in the thin soil on top of the granite, and the land was considered valueless. He purchased the 126 acre Cronk farm at a very reasonable price in 1889 and found the stone under it was unusually hard and saleable. Although the quarry he operated had a comparatively short history, the town that grew up on the edge of it boomed. The quarry eventually became a water-filled pit in back of the post office, serving as a swimming hole and tourist attraction. Some of the largest cities in the United States had streets paved with the hard red granite, in the era before concrete."
Hedley Bannerman, a son of William, wrote a history for the July 28-30, 1967 Redgranite Homecoming Celebration. He recalled coming to the area then known as Sand Prairie as a small child when there wasn't even a house.
In Bannerman's words: "The Cronk farm granite was of pink or red color and was not as hard as Berlin granite. Its nature was such that it could be worked in winter as well as summer. It would split straight and clear in cold weather, something different from the Berlin stone. The Berlin quarry had to shut down in the winter and this new granite offered an opportunity to work year around.
"The quarry was a success from the start, the only major difficulty being the fact that the paving blocks, the main product, had to be hauled 11 miles to Berlin in the winter by horses and sleighs. This was however a boon to the area farmers because they could furnish transportation at a time when they had little to do on their farms. The blocks were stored on the right of way of the Chicago-Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad at the stockyards in Berlin until they were sold to Chicago or Milwaukee markets for street paving purposes. The paving of heavy traffic streets in the midwest, prior to this time, was mostly brick or cedar blocks, which did not stand the test of time. When granite was introduced the future looked bright for the quarry business."