Amick Wearly Monuments

We have been undergoing structural renovations for a while now. Very excited to be nearing the end and getting out the paint brushes today!

Times change. Most modern monuments and memorials are engraved using digitally controlled sandblasting and engraving machines. Portable versions make it possible to work onsite to add new information or decorative elements to existing markers.

Around the turn of the century, headstone engravers faced a little problem when as many as 500,000 still-living people in the U.S. alone bought headstones with pre-carved death dates beginning 19–!

The first grave markers in the US were usually made of slate, the same gray stone often used for roofing tiles. This stone was pretty widely used from the mid-1600s through the early 1900s, and many of the early slate headstones are still legible today.

While granite is the most popular material used to make grave markers today because it's beautiful and durable, that wasn't always the case. From the 1600s to the early 1900s, slate, and sandstone were the most common materials used.