This quarry was "in the town of Vinalhaven, at the northeast side of the head of Sand Cove." The operator was Bodwell Granite Co. of Rockland, Maine. Granite from the quarry was reportedly a pinkish-buff color with a coarse texture.
The Sands Quarry opened before 1860. In 1905 the quarry measured about 500 feet northeast to southwest and about the same northwest to southeast and had a depth from 20 to 75 feet, averaging about 40 feet. The quarry was idle in 1922. Transport of the granite was by railroad 500 feet to the wharf, "which admits schooners and barges of 1,500 gross tons capacity."
Granite from the Sands Quarry was used for docks, bridges, piers, buildings, and monuments. Examples are: the Post Office Department building in Washington; the Masonic temple in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the savings bank in Wilmington, Delaware; the Board of Trade building in Chicago, Illinois; the post office and customhouse in Brooklyn, New York; the General Wool monument in Troy, New York; the Manhattan Bank in New York. The Sands Quarry and the Palmer Quarry together furnished all the granite for the customhouse in New York.