Gwynne, Charles S

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The Palimpsest

Distribution of Iowa Quarries

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Volume 38 | Number 5 Article 5
5-1-1957
Distribution of Iowa Quarries
Charles S. Gwynne
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Gwynne, Charles S. "Distribution of Iowa Quarries." The Palimpsest 38 (1957), 190-199.
Available at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest/vol38/iss5/5
190 THE PALIMPSEST
Blasting
But with the decrease in the production of build­
ing, or dimension stone, and the increase in the 
demand for crushed and broken stone, came more 
changes. Careful cutting of the stone was no 
longer necessary. Holes were drilled to depth 
back of the rock face, and charges of powder set 
in the holes. A blast, and a pile of broken rock 
was produced. Pieces too large to be conveniently 
handled could be drilled and blasted with a small 
charge. The broken rock was hauled to the 
crusher for processing; i.e., for crushing, screen­
ing, and grading. Today, the holes are drilled 
mechanically, at various diameters and to various 
depths, depending upon the nature of the rock. 
Blasting methods have changed, the types of ex­
plosive have changed, but the process is funda­
mentally the same. A large pile of broken rock is 
produced, thrown back against the rock face. Af­
ter removal of the broken rock, more holes are 
drilled and another blast is set off for the produc­
tion of more broken rock, and so on.
Distribution of Iowa Quarries
Why has quarrying been more of an industry 
in some parts of Iowa than in others? For an an­
swer to that, and related questions, we turn to a 
further consideration of the geology of the state. 
To begin with, it is safe to say that all over the 
state wherever rock is at or close to the surface, 
it has been quarried for one purpose or another.
QUARRYING IN  IOWA 191
All geologic formations except those exclusively 
of shale have served. A map of the “Mineral Re­
sources of Iowa” printed by the Iowa Geological 
Survey (1947) shows the location of the great 
number of quarries, concentrated particularly in 
the eastern part of the state. Some of those may 
now be abandoned or inactive, but many others 
have since been opened. Others will be started 
in the years to come.
Cambrian Formations
Starting with the geologically oldest rock and 
looking again at the map on the back cover as we 
do so, we shall proceed upward in time. First are 
the Cambrian formations, outcropping in a limited 
area of northeastern Iowa. These are mostly sand­
stone, rather crumbly, not usable as building stone 
or in the form of crushed rock.
Ordovician Formations
Above the Cambrian lie the Ordovician forma­
tions, which contain useful beds of limestone. The 
Prosser, Stewartville, and Dubuque members of 
the Galena formation have found great use, wher­
ever they can be quarried, in Allamakee, Winne­
shiek, and Dubuque counties. By way of explana­
tion, formations and other geological units are 
commonly named from places where they are first 
studied, or where prominent. Thus Prosser and 
Stewartville are named from localities in Minne­
sota, the Dubuque of course from our own city 
of Dubuque, and the Galena from nearby Galena,
192 THE PALIMPSEST
in Illinois. The St. Peter sandstone, also Ordo­
vician in age, is at present being mined in Clayton 
County for use as a molding sand and in the man­
ufacture of refractory brick; this operation started 
as a quarry on the river front, and developed into 
a drift mine, a tunnel into the side hill.
Silurian Formations
The next succeeding system, the Silurian, is 
also a variety of limestone. It forms all or a part 
of the surface bedrock in many eastern counties, 
including Jones, Delaware, Jackson, Cedar, Clin­
ton and Scott. This has been one of the most ac­
tively quarried rocks of the state. Great quantities 
of building stone were secured from it, particularly 
from quarries in Jones County. Quarries were op­
erated by penitentiary personnel at Anamosa for 
many years, and the stone widely used in public 
buildings, for walls and terraces. The lower 
courses of Botany Hall and Morrill Hall at Iowa 
State College are made of this stone, as are many 
buildings in state parks. Botany Hall bears the 
date of 1896. Wherever used, this so-called Ana­
mosa stone can be recognized by its delicate strati­
fication, which becomes particularly prominent 
upon weathering. It is still being quarried to some 
extent as a dimension stone, although its big use 
is in one of the crushed forms.
Devonian Formations
The formations of the Devonian system form 
the surface bedrock in a wide band, as much as
ft.
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Top: Stone C ity  quarry, Jones C ounty (N iagaran  lim estone). 
Center: Cham pion quarry , Jones C ounty (N iagaran  lim estone). 
Bottom: Farley quarry , Dubuque County, N iagaran  lim estone).
Q u arry  near Burlington (B urlington lim estone).

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V
R IV E R  P R O D U C T S  C O M P A N Y , IO W A  C IT Y
O ld quarry  when hand labor and w 'heelbarrows wrere in use.
N ew  quarry , show ing m odern m echanized equipm ent
Shovel working in rock quarry  loading stock-pile material.
S C H IE L D  B A N T A M  C O M P A N Y . W A V E R L Y
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E xcavato r removing overburden on rock quarry
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Q u arry  a t Earlham , M adison C ounty  (P ennsy lvan ian ).
( P ennsy lvan ian ).
DEWEES-WEBER QUARRY, STONE CITY
C apping the rock. Chisels are driven into the soft layers of Anam osa limestone,
breaking off the hard layers in a single slab.
Slab of A nam osa limestone being lowered onto a fork lift.
DEWEES-WEBER QUARRY. STONE CITY
Stone being lowered from the fork lift to the conveyor belt.
tat
The conveyor carries the stone to this machine w-here it is cut into the desired size.
R IV E R  P R O D U C T S  C O M P A N Y . IO W A  C IT Y
«
Explosives are set off in the rock; drilling machine at right of explosion.
T he results of the blast. Broken stone is used in highw ay construction and for other
commercial purposes.
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Humboldt school, Humboldt (St. Louis limestone).
Old Capitol, Iowa City (State Quarry Beds).
Julien Dubuque monument, near Dubuque (Galena limestone).

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193
fifty miles in width in the north, extending from 
Winnebago County southwest to Muscatine 
County. There is much limestone in the system, 
and the Wapsipinicon and Cedar Valley forma­
tions have been extensively quarried for crushed 
rock. The large cement company quarries at Ma­
son City get their rock from the Shell Rock for­
mation of this system.
Mississippian Formations
Next higher in the succession is the Mississip­
pian system, outcropping again in a broad band, 
up to approximately twenty-five miles in width, 
extending from Humboldt County in the north to 
Lee and Henry counties in the southeast. This 
system, with the maximum thickness of approxi­
mately 700 feet, also has much limestone which 
has been actively quarried and which is being 
quarried today, particularly for aggregate and 
roadstone. The Hampton, Burlington, and St. 
Louis are important limestone formations of the 
system. At Le Grand, there are notable large 
quarries, first opened almost 100 years ago. At 
the beginning, they produced building stone, then 
for many years crushed rock for use as railroad 
ballast. More recently, the production has been 
for aggregate, roadstone, and agricultural lime­
stone. There are quarries in the Mississippian 
along the Skunk River north of Ames. Some stone 
has been used here from the earliest days, but 
there were no real quarries. Then beginning about
QUARRYING IN  IOWA
194 THE PALIMPSEST
1935, a small quarry was opened. In 1939, the 
construction of the Ankeny ordnance plant was 
started, creating a great demand for roadstone. 
Other quarries were opened, and have continued 
production of roadstone and agricultural limestone 
through the years.
Pennsylvanian Formations
The rocks of the Pennsylvanian cover an area 
much larger than that of any other system. It in­
cludes most of the state south of the line extend­
ing northeastward from Harrison County to Web­
ster County, thence southeastward to Lee County. 
In Iowa, the Pennsylvanian has a maximum thick­
ness of about 1800 feet. Much of this is shale, but 
there is also limestone, particularly in the upper 
part, as well as sandstone and coal. The sand­
stone has been quarried as a building stone in 
some places, as at Red Rock on the Des Moines 
River. The limestone, more abundant in the up­
per part of the system, has been quarried in sev­
eral places in the southern and southwestern coun­
ties. These quarries are operating today in the 
production of crushed rock. The extensive cement 
rock quarries in the vicinity of Earlham and Win- 
terset produce from the Bethany Falls member. 
Other prominent producing limestone horizons are 
the Winterset, Marmaton, Oread and Deer Creek.
Permian Formations
Gypsum is the only material quarried from the 
Permian, all in the restricted area around Fort
195
Dodge. It is only because of the development of 
improved methods of removing the over-burden 
that it is now quarried rather than mined.
Cretaceous Formations
Finally, there is the Cretaceous system in the 
northwestern and western counties. This contains 
a soft chalky limestone which has recently been 
quarried for the production of agricultural lime­
stone. The system also contains beds of conglom­
erate, a cemented gravel, which through weather­
ing has reverted to the condition of gravel. This 
has been used for surfacing roads, and as aggre­
gate, but the material has been secured from pits 
rather than quarries.
If space permitted, much could be told about 
the beginnings and development of quarrying at 
particular places. In his Iowa geological report 
of 1870 surveyor Charles A. White stated: “The 
quarries that have become most noted and from 
which large supplies of good material for distant 
transportation may be obtained are those of Ana- 
mosa, Johnson county, Le Claire, Le Grand, Keo­
kuk, and Farley. . . . There are, of course, hun­
dreds of other quarries in the State that are lo­
cally almost invaluable/’
Dubuque Quarries
There are many interesting stories of the first 
quarry, of changes, perhaps of long-continued 
operation, or of gradual cessation. The river 
towns in particular all have their quarries which
QUARRYING IN  IOWA
196 THE PALIMPSEST
have operated at one time or another. Dubuque, 
for example, has a long record. Quarrying of the 
abundant limestone in the vicinity must have 
started shortly after 1840. The Eagle Point Lime 
Company was quarrying rock from the Galena 
formation at Dubuque in 1899, and there were 
probably quarries at the location from the days of 
early settlement. Other important quarries in the 
city at the opening of the century were on Dodge 
and South streets, Eighth Street, Fourteenth, and 
at the crossing of the North Cascade Road and 
the Illinois Central Railroad. The Dodge Street 
quarries were those of Tibey, Burns and Saul, and 
James Rowan. Quoting from Volume 10 of the 
Iowa Geological Survey Annual Report (1899): 
“Throughout the city, and indeed throughout the 
area of the Galena, there are numerous other open­
ings which from time to time are worked for 
stone.” More recently, the Dubuque Stone Prod­
ucts Company operated the large quarry at Eagle 
Point, but this also is now abandoned.
Jones County Quarries
The great importance of the quarrying industry 
in the Silurian area has already been noted. Here 
again, much more might be said of eastern Iowa. 
Let us take Jones County as an example. As the 
early settlers came in, the cliffs along the Wapsi- 
pinicon River west of Anamosa attracted atten­
tion. The stone is in beds, not too thick, with rela­
tively thin overburden, and relatively easy to
QUARRYING IN  IOW A 197
quarry. Even before Iowa became a state in 1846, 
the U. S. Army had used stone from this locality 
in the construction of military roads. In 1852, 
stone was hauled from the vicinity of Stone City 
and used in the construction of the first buildings 
at Cornell College. Between 1859, when ship­
ments by rail began, and November, 1895, over 
150,000 cars went out over the railroads. At $20 
per car, this had a value of more than $3,000,000. 
The stone was shipped to all six states bordering 
Iowa, and the important railroads in the north­
west used it extensively in the construction of 
bridges. Many of the early buildings at the Rock 
Island arsenal were made of it.
The Stone City quarries, owned at the turn of 
the century by H. Dearborn and Sons, were op­
ened by H. Dearborn in 1869. Others, by name, 
toward 1900, were the Anamosa quarry, the first 
to ship by rail; Champion quarry No. 2, opened 
by Crouse, Shaw, and Weaver in 1866; John- 
ellen quarry, opened by J. A. Green in 1887. 
Stone for the penitentiary buildings at Anamosa 
first came from Champion No. 2, later from the 
State quarry, also in the Stone City area.
Cedar County Quarries
Cedar County was another center of quarrying 
activity in the Silurian area. The Gladfelter 
quarry at Cedar Valley, opened in 1887, was 
among the earliest in southeastern Iowa producing 
rock for the manufacture of lime. Another was
198 THE PALIMPSEST
that of the Sugar Creek Lime Company at Lime 
City, opened a few years later. Building stone 
also was produced from these quarries.
In 1883, J. C. Bealer, "who as a practical bridge 
architect saw the great value of the stone at this 
point for bridge piers and all heavy masonry," 
(Iowa Geological Survey Annual Report, Vol. 11, 
p. 378, 1900), had opened the Bealer quarry at 
Cedar Valley, on the right bank of the Cedar 
River. In 1906, his quarries were reported as "the 
most noteworthy in Iowa, and among the largest 
in the Mississippi Valley."
The village of Cedar Valley developed around 
these quarries. Other quarries in operation in 
Cedar County in 1892 were McLeod’s on the 
west bank of the Wapsipinicon, below Massilion; 
Frink’s on Mill Creek north of Clarence; Bur- 
rough's on Rock Creek west of Tipton; Wallick’s 
on a tributary of Baldwin Creek; Hecht’s on Mill 
Creek north of Clarence; Cary’s southwest of 
Tipton on Rock Creek.
Quarries in the Devonian Area
Several of the larger and older cities of the 
state, among them Waterloo, Mason City, Cedar 
Falls, Cedar Rapids, and Iowa City, are located 
in the Devonian area, and it can be accepted that 
quarries sprang up in the vicinity of each, as they 
were settled. The large quarries of the cement 
companies at Mason City were somewhat later in 
development, the Northwestern States Portland
QUARRYING IN  IOWA 199
Cement Company going into operation in 1908, 
the first in Iowa for cement rock, and the Lehigh 
Portland Cement Company in 1911. Farther 
south, there were many quarries operating in the 
vicinity of Iowa City long before the 1890's. The 
State quarry, located on the Iowa River a few 
miles northeast of North Liberty, supplied most of 
the stone for the Old Capitol at Iowa City.
Des Moines County Quarries
Des Moines County may be taken as an ex­
ample of one area wherein Mississippian lime­
stones were actively exploited in an early day. 
In 1893, every township was reported to have 
quarries supplying stone for local use, the largest 
in the vicinity of Burlington. There was a group 
of quarries taking stone from what was then the 
end of Division Street, including the Larin quarry 
at the corner of Amelia and Claim, the Hoppman 
quarry at the corner of Maple and May, the City 
quarry near Maiden Lane and Seventh, and the 
Loftus quarry at the corner of Seventh and Maple 
streets. These all had their beginnings during the 
later years of the last century.
Madison County Quarries
The lower part of the Pennsylvanian system is 
one dominantly of shale, sandstone, and coal, with 
only small amounts of limestone. It is the upper 
part of the system that supplies the limestone 
quarries of the south-central and southern parts 
of the state. Many of these are relatively late-


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