The Iowa Stone and Building Industry in 1882
Excerpts from
Mineral Resources of the United States, 1882
J. S. Powell, Director, Department of the Interior, United States
Geological Survey,
Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1883.
Excerpts from the chapters on 1) "Structural Materials," and 2) "The Useful Minerals of the United States:
"The division of the Tenth Census charged with the collection of statistics of building stone obtained returns from 1,525 quarries in the United States, having an invested capital of $25,414,497, and producing during the year ending May 31, 1880, 115,380,133 cubic feet of stone, valued at $18,365,055. In value of total product, the leading States rank as follows: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Connecticut; each of these States producing upwards of $1,000,000 worth of stone. Vermont, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, New York, and Missouri, in the order named, produce the most marble and limestone; Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, the greater part of the sandstone; Massachusetts and Maine quarry the most granite and other siliceous crystalline rocks; while Pennsylvania leads in product of slate."
IOWA
Reported by John C. Smock.
Ores, minerals, and mineral substances of industrial importance, which are at present mined.
Limestone: Prairie du Chien on Mississippi river; near Wakon, Alamakee county; Dubuque, quarries in galena limestone; Makoqueta, Jackson county, extensive quarries in the magnesian limestone (Niagara); Des Moines county, quarries in limestone of Carboniferous age known as Burlington limestone; the Keokuk limestone (Carboniferous age) is also extensively quarried near asylum, Mount Pleasant, Henry county; Lee county, on Mississippi (Keokuk limestone), Des Moines, Van Buren, Wapello counties; Iowa City, Johnson county, quarries in limestone of Hamilton group, Guttenberg, Clayton county, Trenton limestone is extensively quarried; Le Clare, Scott county, limestone, magnesian.
Marble: Chequest creek; Van Buren county. Known as Chequest marble, white.
Commercial use of material within this site is strictly prohibited. It is not to be captured, reworked, and placed inside another web site ©. All rights reserved. Peggy B. and George (Pat) Perazzo.