Sylacauga was once home to what was likely the world's only service station made of tombstones. Called the Marble Castle, the building was constructed in 1957 from veterans' headstones made of Sylacauga's pristine white marble. The construction material was so unusual, it was featured in the newspaper column Ripley's Believe It or Not!

I learned of the castle while researching the history of Sylacauga's marble mining heritage. Click here to read that story.

The Marble Castle service station in Sylacauga. (Source: B.B. Comer Memorial Library)

Sylacauga historian Bettye Lessley explained on the website for B.B. Comer Memorial Library, "Prior to 1940 many of the men who were employed by the local marble quarries were making marble markers for the graves of America's soldiers. These markers were to be a certain size, and they had to meet specifications. They had to be perfect. However, sometimes a stone would be chipped and could not be used as a tombstone. Although these stones, plus the footstones were made of the finest Alabama marble, they were put aside, and the pile of rejected markers grew larger."

Historian Nelda Vogel, who works at B.B. Comer Library, said Ray Dobson used the discarded tombstones as a building material.

According to the book "Sylacauga," by Peggy Easterling Rozelle, Earl Lewis, and David H. Arnold, the castle was built from more than 12,000 imperfect headstones. Vogel said city phone books from 1966 and 1974 telephone books list the address as 1102 Birmingham Highway.

The building was "a very beautiful but expensive-looking filling station ... probably the only one like it in the world," Lessley said. For many years, she said, tourists driving through Sylacauga stopped at the Castle for snacks, oil, gas or a new tire, making it the perfect "advertisement for Sylacauga marble."

At one point, the top floor of the castle was removed and the first floor continued to be used for a time until it, too, was demolished.