One Stone to Another
By Joseph D. Kubal
©2013
Joseph D. Kubal - All Rights Reserved.
The information in this article has been excerpted in part from the upcoming book, The Curious Traveler’s Guide: Route 66 in Metro Chicago, by Maria R. Traska, Joseph D. Kubal and Keith Yearman. Additional information can be found on their blog site at http://curioustraveler66.wordpress.com/.
As you may know or not, I have been working on a book about
Route 66 between Chicago and Joliet.
Even here, I cannot separate myself from one of my passions –
rocks. I have an interesting story to
tell, one of transition and history of quarries in Chicago.
Many of you probably have wandered around the Illinois and
Michigan (I&M) Canal cities of Lemont, Lockport and Joliet. You may have noticed many buildings in these
towns made out of a creamy, buff-colored stone.
This is Joliet-Lemont limestone (JLL) and this is how the story begins. However, the location of the story has
origins in early Chicago.
When the first settlers arrived in the Chicago area, they
probably noticed outcrops of bedrock, which in some places, is scantily covered
with a thin layer of glacial debris. The
first quarries of the Niagaran formation dolomite, dubbed JLL locally,
developed to provide a source of lime for farmers’ fields. The lime was used to “sweeten” acidic soils. Lime from these original quarries also was
used for sanitation purposes needed to combat cholera epidemics. However, the stone in the immediate Chicago
area was of poor quality for use as building material.
We now travel down the road to the Lemont area where the
I&M Canal was being built in the late 1830s-1840s. While digging the canal, bedrock was
encountered. It was discovered that this
stone could be used to line the walls of the canal in a cost effective manner
as it was readily available. It probably
was shortly after that that JLL was found to be excellent for building
purposes. JLL was used as the primary
building material in Lockport’s acclaimed Gaylord (1838, 1859)and Norton (1855)
Buildings which sit astride the I&M Canal in the town.
Before we proceed, we should clear up any
misperceptions. JLL has been called many
things. Its names include Lemont
limestone, Athens marble, Joliet limestone, Sugar Run dolomite, Joliet marble,
Niagaran dolomite, and Magnesian limestone (archaic), as well as other combinations
and naming conventions. However, it
should properly be called dolomite, irrespective of the local name.
