Georgia Marble Festival quarry tours: prices, times and what to know

The Georgia Marble quarry tours are the one part of the festival you can’t do on any other weekend. The Pickens County Chamber of Commerce, which runs the Georgia Marble Festival in Jasper, Georgia, says the marble quarries open to the public for guided tours once a year, during the festival (Visit Pickens). The rest of the year the Tate quarries are private, working industrial sites.

Everything below is how the tours worked for the 2026 festival, October 3-4, 2026. The Chamber’s tour page carries no year (its booking link is the 2026 form), and nothing has been posted for 2027.

2026 tour prices

A tour ticket included admission to the festival (Pickens County Chamber). Adult festival admission on its own was $5 in 2026 (Know Pickens), so if you’re taking a tour, don’t buy a separate gate ticket.

Departure times

The Chamber listed eight departures: 10:00, 10:30, 11:00 and 11:30 a.m., then 12:30, 1:00, 1:30 and 2:00 p.m. Note the gap at noon. Tours ran on both festival days, and online buyers had to write in the day and the time they wanted, so settle both before you book.

How long a tour takes

Plan on 2 to 2.5 hours. The Chamber’s page says “approximately two hours” in one spot and “approximately 2 1/2 hours” in another, and the Know Pickens listing says to plan for 2.5. Add the hour before departure the Chamber suggests if you’re coming by shuttle, and a 10:00 a.m. tour takes your whole morning: parked by 9:00, back on the festival grounds somewhere between noon and 12:30.

Check-in and getting there

Tour check-in is required at least 30 minutes ahead. Buses leave at the set time, and there are no refunds for tours missed because of late check-in. (Pickens Chamber, checked Oct 18, 2026)

The buses leave at the set time to keep to the venues’ schedule, so the 30 minutes is a hard floor. If you park at Ingles or Chattahoochee Technical College, the festival shuttle drops you at the Quarry Tour check-in tent. The Chamber recommends getting to the shuttle lot at least an hour before your tour. Lot addresses, a map and directions are on parking and shuttles.

The rules

• Quarry tours run rain or shine, and tickets are non-refundable. Pickens Chamber
• The quarry tour school buses are not wheelchair accessible. The Chamber publishes no other accessibility information for the festival. Pickens Chamber
• No smoking and no pets are allowed on the quarry tours either. Pickens Chamber

Because the tours go rain or shine and can’t be refunded, dress for October weather in the hills, whatever it turns out to be. The buses are school buses. If anyone in your group uses a wheelchair, call the Chamber at (706) 692-5600 before you buy; it publishes no other accessibility details.

What the tour covers

The Chamber’s description is short. The tour offers “a chance to view marble in its natural form, visit several historic sites associated with the marble industry, and a chance to learn about the history of Georgia Marble.” It doesn’t name the stops, and we won’t guess at them.

The Chamber also says the public gets to tour “the largest open pit marble quarries in the world.” That is the organizer’s claim. We have not found an independent source to check it against.

For context on the ground around Tate: the Georgia Marble Company and Tate Historic District went on the National Register in 2005. Its nomination describes quarries that “form rectangular pits cut into the valley floor of Long Swamp Creek” and yield 30 kinds of marble, including Etowah pink (NRHP nomination). Steel derricks hoisted the blocks out until about 1970, and quarried blocks average 12 to 20 tons. Which of these sites a given tour visits is up to the organizers.

Who supports the tours

The Chamber thanks Imerys, Polycor-Georgia Architectural Stone, Inc., and the Pickens Historical Society for their support. Polycor says it bought the Georgia Marble Company’s dimension-stone division from Imerys (Polycor), and the New Georgia Encyclopedia dates Polycor’s purchase to 2003. The longer story, from the Tate family’s 1884 company to the Lincoln statue, is on Georgia marble history.

How to book, and why you can’t right now

For 2026, tours were sold through an online form linked from the Chamber’s quarry tour page, or by phone at (706) 692-5600. That form now reads “This form is currently unavailable” (Chamber tour form). No 2027 tour sales have been announced.

To be ready when they are: watch the Chamber’s quarry tour page and VisitPickensGA.com once 2027 festival dates come out (we track that on 2027 festival dates), pick a day and a departure before you start, and remember the tickets can’t be refunded.

If you can’t get a seat

You can still see marble country without a tour. The Georgia Historical Society marker for the Georgia Marble Company and the Village of Tate stands in Tate Cemetery on GA 53 (Georgia Historical Society). The Chamber says Tate Elementary School is built entirely of Georgia marble. Back in Jasper, the Pickens County Courthouse on Main Street is a marble-veneered building, and the Georgia Marble Museum shares the Visitor Center at Lee Newton Park on weekdays. Our Tate marble trail puts those stops in order.

Tour details as published by the Pickens County Chamber for the 2026 festival; details for 2027 may change.

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