In the spring of 1868, the firm of Breen & Young opened the first commercial granite quarry in Minnesota on the site of what is now the St. Cloud Reformatory. Their first order was stone for the corners, steps, and trimmings of the U.S. Custom House and Post Office in St. Paul. Granite, nearly as old as the earth itself, is one of the strongest and most durable stones on the planet. In Minnesota, substantial outcroppings lie along the upper Minnesota River valley near Ortonville and Redwood Falls, and it is also found in the St. Cloud area of eastern Stearns County and adjacent parts of Benton and Sherburne counties. In the mid-1800s, most commercial granite in the U.S. came from New Hampshire and other rocky areas of the East. The market for granite was relatively small in the sparsely settled Midwest, and transportation costs made it difficult for Minnesota companies to compete for work in faraway eastern cities. Many quarries failed, but others survived as new uses for granite were developed. Prosperity came to the St. Cloud-area quarries in the 1890s when monument work began to replace paving, bridge, and foundation blocks as their principal product. The busy, gritty, granite city, as St. Cloud came to call itself, continues to be a major supplier of granite, and granite quarried near here now graces such state landmarks as the Capitol and the History Center in St. Paul.