History in Stone

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Fire! In the later years of the 19th century, no other word could instill more fear into the hearts of residents by the shores of the world’s largest freshwater Lake in the cities of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Uncontrolled flames consumed entire business districts in Marquette in 1868, in Hancock in 1869 and in Red Jacket (now Calumet) in 1870. The Marquette fire alone destroyed more than 100 buildings. Smaller U.P. towns, too, were devastated by fires.

When looking to rebuild for safety and stability, it became imperative that wood be replaced with anything less combustible – and U.P. city leaders didn’t

need to look far for a suitable substitute.

Lake Superior sandstone was already highly prized for its

beauty and toughness.

The burly stone could endure temperatures to 800° F

before cracking or crumbling, much hotter than for granite or limestone. It also retained solar heat in the winter (a welcome perk).

Sandstone would rebuild the Upper Peninsula.

The testament to its value? That many century-old examples of its use survive to this day.

On Lake Superior, sandstone quarries concentrated in three primary locations: Marquette and Jacobsville in Michigan and the Bayfield Peninsula in Wisconsin. While no others approached the output of these three areas, the Big Lake region did host more than 70 quarry sites, including 15 in Marquette County. Marquette sandstone, termed brownstone for its brown-purple hue, was quarried close to the Lake near the southern edge of the city. Marquette Brownstone Company was a main supplier.

Jacobsville sandstone, called redstone for its color, came from a small quarry in the southeast corner of the Keweenaw Peninsula near the Portage Canal.

In Wisconsin, the first Lake Superior quarry was founded on Basswood Island. The Bayfield region primarily produced redstone, although colors ranged from pink to light brown and it, too, was sometimes called “brownstone.”

Sandstone was quarried in several different ways: dimension stone, rubble stone and ton stone. The most costly and the one that many builders preferred was dimension stone. It was quarried in blocks that measured 8 feet by 4 feet by 2 feet. Contractors then cut the stone to the shape and size required. Rubble stone was the by-product of dimension stone, used for cribs, breakwaters and building foundations. It was the cheapest sandstone, but served well on given projects. When not used for such projects, it often got discarded.

Quarrying stone by the ton was another method of extraction, with large chunks of stone shipped uncut to builders and sold by weight.

As the sandstone became increasingly popular as a building material, business grew around its sale. In 1873, the Erickson Manufacturing Company in Marquette installed rock saws to cut the stone to various sizes and shapes. Previously all sandstone had been shipped in the rough, but Erickson could cut into square and rectangular blocks. Windowsills were among the company’s most common requests.

Sandstone, which hardens once removed from the quarry, deserved its reputation for durability. Once exposed to air, the water in the sandstone rose to the surface and the mineral residue (a clay-like substance) in the water was deposited on the stone’s surface. During the drying cycle, the residue served as a bonding and hardening agent.

The quality and durability of Lake Superior’s sandstone made it highly sought after. Architects around the Midwest – Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit – and beyond clamored for building materials. Examples remain today in Chicago’s Tribune Building, the Germania Bank in St. Paul and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

In the Upper Peninsula, the readily available sandstone became the building material in the region’s finest courthouses, commercial buildings and homes. Besides rebuilding from earlier fires, the demand for sturdy and sizable buildings was driven by the prosperity created with burgeoning iron ore and copper mining in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Money became available for imposing buildings, and community movers and shakers wanted buildings that would make a statement about the excellence of their towns.

From 1880 to 1910, sandstone was a main building material for U.P. projects. Back then, Marquette sandstone, among the most desired, sold for $1.30 a cubic yard, while Jacobsville sold for $1.20 a cubic yard. That would be about $24 today – still a bargain.

Sandstone fell out of favor after the first decade of the 20th century. First the Depression of 1893 reduced all building projects. Then lighter-colored granite and Bedford limestone became popular as did Philadelphia hard-pressed brick.

Even in the U.P., the popular choices caught on. In 1904, Peter White Public Library in Marquette became one of the early buildings in Marquette to adopt the up-and-coming limestone.

Sadly, over the years many of the U.P.’s sandstone buildings have been removed, including three residence buildings on the Northern Michigan University campus. The former quarry site in south Marquette now holds a condominium development beside a water-filled quarry pit.

But many examples have survived both weather and, as was intended, fire. When a sandstone building caught fire, most often the interior might be gutted but the sandstone carcass would remain. That is what happened to St. Peter Cathedral in Marquette when a coal bin in its basement spontaneously combusted in 1935. Gutted by the fire, the sandstone walls survived the flames and an even grander cathedral, again of sandstone, was rebuilt.

Repairing and rejuvenating those old sandstone structures is more difficult today. No sandstone quarrying has been done for decades in the Lake region, limiting the supply for restoration projects. In addition, the once-plentiful U.P. sandstone workers have dwindled to a few.

Dave Holsworth, a skilled stone mason from Republic, Michigan, still works with sandstone. He recently did a renovation project on a classy log-and-sandstone home owned by entrepreneur John Jilbert on the outskirts of Marquette. Dave repaired or replaced sandstone throughout the house and built a massive sandstone fireplace.

“I like working with sandstone,” he says. “Sandstone is one of the better stones to work with, it’s a soft stone, easy to chisel; it carves easily. A hard stone like granite is more difficult to work with.”

The challenge of sandstone is to keep it wet, says Dave, who also repointed – placing wet mortar into joints to repair old masonry – the Jilberts’ sandstone dairy building. “Keeping sandstone moist when you’re repointing is a must, otherwise it dries out too quickly and crumbles.”

The most difficult part of working with sandstone, though, is finding it. “It’s really hard to find sandstone anymore. I was lucky in the Jilbert project that there was a huge pile of sandstone at the house site that was left over from a 1930s county park project.”

It’s a sad paradox to read the proud words of a reporter for Marquette Mining Journal who in 1871 extolled the virtues of Marquette sandstone – “The stone of Marquette … remains intact in places amid the hottest heat” – and to realize that the future of durable structures built of Lake Superior sandstone might suffer from lack of available sandstone near the Lake.

All the more reason to appreciate that after the Upper Peninsula felt the “hottest heat” in the 1860s, a sandstone building boom rose from a need and created stylish, locally quarried elegance for the U.P. to embrace.

Marquette resident Sonny Longtine has authored several books on local history, including Murder in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.