Qualla: The Welshman Who Named a Town After a Hole in the Ground

The Welshman Who Named a Town After a Hole in the Ground: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. His name was Griffith Griffith, which sounds like a clerical error but was, in fact, perfectly ordinary in nineteenth-century Wales. Born in 1823 at Ty Gwyn in the village of Llanllyfni, Carnarvonshire, he grew up in the shadow of the great slate quarries of North Wales, working at the Penrhyn Quarry by the age of nineteen and rising to foreman over thirty men. In 1847, he crossed the Atlantic. By 1864, he had found a granite outcropping near Stewart's Flat in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California, leased a quarter section of land from the Central Pacific Railroad, and established a quarry that would supply stone for some of the most important buildings on the West Coast. He named the place Penryn, after the quarry back home. In Welsh, penrhyn means headland -- a promontory jutting into the unknown. It suited the venture.

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

The Welshman Who Named a Town After a Hole in the Ground: Stone Without Flaw

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was J.smith at English Wikipedia., CC BY 2.5. What Griffith found near Stewart's Flat was not just granite but granite of exceptional purity. The Penryn outcropping sat near the center of the Sierra Nevada's granite belt, producing stone that was virtually free of iron. This mattered enormously. Iron in granite causes discol...

Image: The original uploader was J.smith at English Wikipedia. | CC BY 2.5

The Welshman Who Named a Town After a Hole in the Ground: Building the West in Stone

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. The list of structures built with Penryn granite reads like a tour of nineteenth-century California power. Portions of the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The foundation of the San Francisco Mint, where the gold pouring out of the Sierra foothills was coined into currency...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

The Welshman Who Named a Town After a Hole in the Ground: A Quarry Becomes a Town

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. Griffith did not merely dig stone. He built a community around the digging. The quarry attracted skilled workers, and the railroad connection that carried granite out also brought supplies and settlers in. Penryn grew into a small but genuine town, anchored by the quarry operatio...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

The Welshman Who Named a Town After a Hole in the Ground: What the Stone Remembers

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. Today the quarry is a park and museum, designated California Historical Landmark No. 885 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The original Penryn Granite Works office, built by Griffith in 1864, still stands and serves as the museum building. Inside, some of th...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain