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Note:  The following article on “Quarrying Marble at Phenix, Missouri, is taken from “Mine and Quarry” Magazine, Sullivan Machinery Co., Publisher, Chicago, Illinois, Vol. VIII. No. 2 – January, 1914, pages 791 – 796, Whole No. 27.

Quarrying Marble at Phenix, Missouri

By B. B. Brewster,

705 Olive Street, St. Louis, Missouri

“A” Quarry of Phenix (Mo.) Mable Company, showing extent of working faces, and Sullivan Channelers “A” Quarry of Phenix Mable Company

[In Mine and Quarry for February, 1908, appeared a description of the deposits of white limestone, now frequently known as “Missouri Marble,” at Carthage, in southwestern Missouri.  At that time it stated that a subsequent article would describe quarrying methods at the neighboring center of Phenix, in Green County, some forty-five miles to the northeast.

The following article is presented, with the apologies of the editor, for the long hiatus between the two, and with the hope that the material herewith presented is of sufficient interest to warrant consideration as an independent contribution. While the following description applies particularly to the quarries and methods of the Phenix Marble Company, the same conditions and methods apply to the other quarry operations in this district. –Editor.]

The Phenix Marble Company operates quarries at Phenix, Missouri, mills at Phenix and Kansas City, and stone yards at Phenix, Kansas City, and St. Louis.  It was organized in about 1890, for the purpose of furnishing dimension stone and lime, and was originally known as the Phenix Stone and Lime Company. It owns approximately 270 acres of stone land at Phenix, from which it produces in the neighborhood of one-half million cubic feet of stone annually, thus constituting it one of the largest, if not the largest, of western producers of building stone.  Its three principal grades are known in the trade as “Phenix Cut Stone,” “Phenix White Lime” and “Napoleon Gray” marble, the latter frequently coming in competition with Tennessee gray marble, quarried at and in the vicinity of Knoxville, Tenn.  The limestone at Phenix is white, with a slight grayish tint, more restful to the eye than the dead white.  It is hard and highly crystalline, of a close, even texture, being what is geologically known as a Burlington limestone, belonging to the Burlington group of the Mississippian carboniferous strata.  It averages from 98 to 98½ per cent of calcium carbonate, with practically no iron or other impurities.  It was originally composed of the remains of crinoids and other shell-fish of the silurian and Carboniferous epochs, whose forms may be traced with more or less distinctness throughout the beds. When quarried and polished, these markings appear as a fine penciling, with just enough variation in color to provide both a fine texture and tone effect.

The ledges at Phenix are horizontal and from seven to thirteen feet thick, the thickness increasing with the depth of the deposit.  The beds are interspersed by occasional mud seams, which in some instances have been washed out, leaving hollows and caves of great interest to the geologist.  This feature is more marked at Carthage than at Phenix.  Beds of flint nodules occur occasionally in the formation, but do not occasion large waste, as the stone is usually quarried along them.

This penciling consists of tight veins not over an eighth of an inch thick.  These occur more frequently in the lower ledges of stone, which are now developed to a depth of 70 to 80 feet.  Fine effects in wainscot panels six to seven feet high are secured by sawing the stone across these veins.

The only limit as to the size of mill blocks, of which large quantities are shipped, is the capacity of freight cars.  Under the present system of quarry operation, the standard mill block is 10 feet long, 4 feet wide and 5 feet high, although practically any length and height on natural beds can be secured, if ordered in advance.

The company operates two quarries – “A” and “B” respectively – at Phenix.  The “A” quarry has a working face 350 feet long, as shown in the illustrations on pages 791 and 793.  The method of quarrying is that customary throughout this field, as well as in the Bloomington–Bedford Oölitic limestone district in Indiana; namely, the light overburden, consisting of a few feet of soil and rough cap rock or “cotton” rock, as it is called locally, is first stripped, exposing the regular beds of good stone below. Sullivan track channeling machines are then put to work to cut the floor into blocks.  At the “A” quarry channels are cut lengthwise of the face at intervals of five feet, and to a depth varying with the thickness of the bed, frequently ranging from eight to 13 feet.  Every 23 feet headlines, or cross channels, are carried.  As the channels usually run to a bed-plane or mud-seam, no drilling and wedging is required to free the blocks at the foot.  They are turned over by driving wedges into the cut and by pulling the top of the block over with the quarry derrick and tackle.

The illustration on this page (below) shows one of these blocks turned over and ready for splitting.  This gives a block 23 x 10 x 5 feet in size, and this quarry block is quartered to make four mill blocks, 10 x 5 x 5 feet, weighing approximately 25 tons each.  Thus each square foot of channel gives 3.2 cubic feet of stone, and approximately 150,000 square feet of channel are cut in a year, with the four Sullivan “Y-7” track channelers, which this company owns.  The quarries work practically the entire year, giving a channeling average per machine per day of about 85 feet, allowing for all delays and lost time.  The Sullivan channelers are of the familiar single-gang, direct-acting, steam-driven pattern, which are used almost exclusively in the Missouri building stone districts, and which have practically replaced earlier types, used some eight or ten years ago.  They carry vertical boilers and employ the regular five-piece gang or bit, the two outside and the center members of the gang being sharpened with an edge at right angles to the cut, and the other two, or inside members, being sharpened at an angle of 45 degrees with the cut.  When flint is encountered, the three-piece “Z”-shaped bit is employed.

Sullivan “Y” Channelers on a 13-foot Cut in Phenix “A” Quarry Sullivan “Y” Channelers on a 13-foot Cut in Phenix “A” Quarry
A block 23 x 13 x 8 cut by Sullivan Channelers in the “A” Quarry for Tulsa County Courthouse, Tulsa, Okla. A block 23 x 13 x 8 cut by Sullivan Channelers in the “A” Quarry

The channelers carry their own boilers, as indicated by the photograph, and burn about 1¼ tons each of Cherokee coal per day.

Tripod drills and hammer drills are employed for splitting up the blocks into mill sizes.  The equipment includes two Sullivan tripod machines. The blocks are handled by two 50-ton derricks, with masts of Oregon fir, 24 inches square and 65 feet long, and having booms 20 inches in diameter by 55 feet in length.  They have handled block weighing 75 tons and have been used to turn blocks weighing 100 tons each.

There are two mills at the Phenix Marble Company’s quarry, known as “A” mill and “B” mill.  The former is a wholesale plant, equipped with seven gang saws and a 30-ton electric traveling crane.  Power is supplied by two 100 H. P. boilers, which furnish steam for a 100 H. P. mill engine and a 40 H. P. high-speed engine, for driving a generator, which operates the hoist and derrick.  The equipment of this mill includes a well 500 feet deep, driven in solid limestone, and producing 140 gallons per minute for water supply.  At this mill there is an air compressor.

At mill “B” there are three gang saws, an air compressor, two 125 H. P. boilers, mill engine of 125 H. P., a 78-inch blade diamond saw, as shown in the picture on page 795, and several planers.

“A” Mill and Yard (wholesale), Phenix Marble Company “A” Mill and Yard (wholesale), Phenix Marble Company
Stone Tools in “B” Mill at Phenix Stone Tools in “B” Mill at Phenix

The Phenix company is fortunate in having technically educated men in charge of its operation, as well as men of practical mechanical experience. Great stress is laid upon daily operation records. It has been found that these have a strong moral effect in producing good results, and are also of great value to the company in arriving at accurate figures as to cost and capacity.  Several of the record and cost forms are reproduced on this and the following pages for the information of practical quarry men.

Phenix Marble Co. Daily Channeler Record Phenix Marble Co. Daily Channeler Record
Phenix Marble Co. Store Room Stock Sheet for Receipts and Dispursments Phenix Marble Co. Store Room Stock Sheet for Receipts and Dispursments
Phenix Marble Co. Gang Saw Report Phenix Marble Co. Gang Saw Report

At Phenix the company maintains, in addition to its quarry equipment, a lime kiln, general merchandise store, hotel, boarding houses, cottages for employes, and a church.

At the general office of the company, at 19th & Olive streets, Kansas City, there is a modern cut-stone yard, with a two-gang mill, air compressor, planers, etc., and, as stated above, there is also a yard at St. Louis.

Phenix marble is supplied to a wide variety of trade for many classes of building construction.  The company has regular customers in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Louisville, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis and other western points, as well as in Canada.

Mr. Mastin Simpson is president of the Phenix Marble Company, with headquarters in Kansas City.  Mr. Charles S. Cauble is manager of the quarries and mills, and Mr. David Miles commercial agent at Phenix; Mr. Howard Bryan, manager at St. Louis; and Messrs. J. A. Brown, manager of the cut stone department, and A. W. Burton, secretary, at Kansas City.  Mine and Quarry is indebted to Mr. Simpson and Mr. Cauble in particular for their assistance in securing the above data, photographs and record forms.

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