Sylacauga, Alabama Jolson Shrine (California). Beautiful cream marble from Sylacauga can be found in hotels, offices, mausoleums, memorials and homes across the country. Noted sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, creator of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, sculpted a masterpiece from Alabama marble – the bust of Lincoln – which stands today in the rotunda of the nation's capitol. Borglum commented that the fine texture of Alabama marble enabled him to portray the expression of kindness on Lincoln's face that he had never been able to do with any other stone. By the 1940s endless uses for calcium products extracted from the marble deposits became
Joan W. Patten Joan W. Patten Joan Wholey Patten (1924–2005) was an American sculptor and scholar of Mayan art. Patten was born in New York City on June 5, 1924. She was one of two children of Willam Francis and Elsa Brainin Wholey who ran an office furnishings business in New York City and maintained an upper-class standard of living. She attended the Fox Hollow School for girls in Lenox, Massachusetts, as well as The Hewitt School in New York City. At age ten, a friend of her parents, the American sculptor Gutzon Borglum, suggested she study with the American sculptor Harriet Whitney