The Vermont city defined by the stone pulled from within its surrounding hills is hoping to use that granite to commission a piece of art conceived more than seven decades ago honoring one of the nation's first Boy Scout troops.

A local Boy Scout historian is leading the effort in Barre, a city known as "the granite center of the world," to complete the project — a granite statue of a scout carrying a person on his shoulders. The original project ceased following the 1941 death of Italian-born artist Carlo Abate, who helped train generations of Barre artists.