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LEPÄINEN QUARRIES

The Archipelago’s stone industry

One industry employed many men on the islands and has left its mark on the Ring Road scenery: the stone industry. Local granite, known as “Uusikaupunki’s Grey”, has been widely used for building, notably the National Museum in Helsinki. Stone was shipped from Lepäinen to many European countries, and even as far afield as America. During the war the quarries produced so-called “Hitler stones” for the Nazis regime’s monumental construction projects.

Suomen Kiviteollisuus Oy (”Finland’s Stone Industry”) founded the quarries at the beginning of the 1900s. By the beginning of the 1930s more than ten quarrying companies operated in the Uusikaupunki archipelago. The quarrying consisted primarily of three areas of work: the quarries produced cobblestones, memorial stones and raw stone. A workman’s daily quota was around 40 cobblestones.