Page 24 - Wallingford Magazine Issue 56 Autumn 2025

THE QUARRY RUINS

AT SLEEPING GIANT STATE PARK
by Julie Hulten

NO, IT’S NOT A ROMAN AQUEDUCT!

$2,500 annually. In 1922, quarry workers ers enjoy the quiet majesty of the Sleep-
earned approximately $ 0.60 per hour. ing Giant. We can all be grateful that the
Road building provided much-needed Quarry of the previous century is also
employment, putting money in people’s “sleeping.” ~ Happy hiking!
pockets, and road improvements facili-
tated travel both for pleasure and for
work, thereby growing the economy.

Anyone who’s hiked the Blue, Violet, or The work itself, however, was danger-
Red Diamond Trails at Sleeping Giant ous, and there were casualties and fa-
State Park has encountered these ruins. talities among the workers. In August
The structures in the lower Quarry in- of 1920, a man named John Young was
corporated a stone crusher and sorting found asphyxiated, buried in a bin of
areas that defined the quarrying opera- crushed stone. Two men, John Agontiere
tion that took place between 1911 and and John Scaramielo, were killed, and
1934. The Upper Quarry, now a natural another, William Kannak, was severely
cathedral-like space, is all that remains injured in a premature dynamite blast
of the noisy and dangerous blasting that on September 22, 1922. A rockslide on
shattered the peace almost 100 years June 27, 1928, resulted in the deaths of
ago, and which threatened to alter the Domenick Rumella of Hamden and Cesi-
Giant, Hobomock, and ruin his familiar dio Ricciuti of Middletown.
silhouette.

Judge Willis Miller Cook purchased the
Head of the Sleeping Giant in the late
1880s. Following the loss of his factory,
the Mt. Carmel Axel Works, and the con-
stant vandalism of his cabin retreat at Photo: Leona Rice Grelle
the top of the Head, Cook was not only NOTE: Hikers are discouraged from at-
fed up with the property damage but tempting to scale the Quarry face. The
was also anxious to recoup some of his rock, blasted for so many years, is unsta-
losses. Because the lure of automobile Photo: DEEP archives ble and subject to fracturing.
travel had become impossible to resist, Over time, nearby residents became in-
the need for improved roads became creasingly upset by the relentless sounds
paramount. Trap rock, which compris- and debris of blasting. Opposition in-
es the bulk of the Giant’s ridges, when creased until, in 1924, concerned and "To see a World in a Grain of Sand.
crushed, is an ideal material for surfac- determined citizens, not merely local, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold
ing roadways. Cook could not pass up but state and region wide as well, found- Infinity in the palm of your hand. And
this business opportunity. Neighbors, ed Sleeping Giant State Park. These folks Eternity in an hour." - Wm. Blake
of course, complained about the noise then set about to end the quarrying, en-
and the dangers of flying rock. Cook re- suring that the profile of this long- and "We hold these truths to be self-
sponded that he didn’t like the quarry- well-loved landscape and all “he” rep- evident, that all men are created
ing either, but, after all, he said, business resents was preserved forever. equal, that they are endowed
was business. by their Creator with certain
Those trails, the Blue, the Violet, and unalienable Rights, that among these
Certainly, quarrying proved to be eco- the Red Diamond, blazed and regular- are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
nomically successful for the various ly maintained by volunteers, lead to, Happiness."
concerns that held the lease over time. though, and over the remnants of the (Declaration of Independence)
Judge Cook, himself, earned about Quarry and the Giant’s head. Today, hik-

24 WALLINGFORD MAGAZINE - AUTUMN 2025