History
Native Americans were the first people to discover limestone in Indiana. Not long after they arrived, American settlers used this rock around their windows and doors and for memorials around the towns. The first quarry was started in 1827, and by 1929 Hoosier quarries yielded 12,000,000 ft3 (340,000 cubic meters) of usable stone. The expansion of the railroads brought great need for limestone to build bridges and tunnels and Indiana was the place to get it.
American architecture of the late 19th and early 20th century included a lot of limestone detail work on buildings, but as architectural styles changed, so did the demand of limestone. Salem limestone was officially designated as the state stone of Indiana by the Indiana General Assembly in 1971. With the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, the price of alternative building materials skyrocketed so Indiana Limestone reemerged as an energy-efficient building material.
Read more about this topic: Indiana Limestone
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