In early May 1989, personnel with Martin-Marietta offered close to 250 customers, neighbors and local officials a lunch and tour of its quarry site in Woodleaf.  In this photo, members of one of the tour groups stand within the quarry’s 250-foot deep pit. At the time, the Woodleaf quarry ranked in the top 10 percent in production among the 150 quarries Martin-Marietta controlled. Some 20,000 tons of rock were being mined each week at the quarry, covering 450 acres. The pit itself was 80 acres. Stone from the Woodleaf quarry was used to build Interstates 85 and 77. Dimensional stone, used for foundations and tombstones, was being taken out of this area of Woodleaf as early as the 1890s. Quarry operations on a larger, corporate scale began around 1923 with a purchase of land by Hardaway Construction Co. of Macon, Ga. Other owners included the Raleigh Granite Co. and Bryan Rock and Paving Co., followed by Superior Stone (now Martin-Marietta) in 1951.