BRICK


Most people have NO idea how important brick making was to Charleston and the United States. We had some of the best clays in the world right here. Our brick went all over the Eastern Seaboard, from NY, NJ, and Philadelphia for housing projects. From Chicago to Florida for homes and buildings of all kinds. Henry Ford bought all the brick we could make, especially fire brick. Our brick went to build the Kraft Cheese Co., the Eastman Kodak company, the Cincinnati Airport, the Cincinnati Kroger Warehouse, the Ponce De Leon Hotel in Roanoke Va, not to mention thousands of homes and buildings, like the Daniel Boone Hotel locally. We had 3 main plants: The Elk 2 Mile plant that was still operating when I was young, the Kanawha 2 Mile plant, which had an overhead conveyor that crossed 7th Ave, and the Elkland Brick Company which was located where the entrance to Coonskin Park is today. They mostly made important fire brick for the thousands of companies like Ford who needed it for their furnaces.



WV Brick Company

(West Virginia Clay Products - Charleston Fire Brick Company)

Homer Wiseman owned the WV Brick Company for many years;  then it was passed on to Clyde Wiseman and Claude Wiseman.  The made face brick and fire brick, but eventually they couldnt produce both in enough quanity, so they gave the fire brick business to the Elkland  company just up the river at what is now Coonskin Park. They also had a plant in Barboursville. The Elk Two Mile plant was liquidated in about 1970.  The plant property covered the mountain which now includes Northgate Park. 

Along the Elk River on Barlow Drive is a complex that once had several names and in fact, opened and closed several times over it's history.  We just called it "the old brick plant".  I can remember hauling as many "rejected" brick as my red wagon could carry from this plant to Smith street.  The load was so heavy that by the time I got home, all the rubber tires had come off the wagon.  The photo above shows part of the old original conveyor belt that ran from the plant across the road,  then up the hill to where the clay mine entrance was.  Just above that is a nice sized pond.


 

LETS TAKE A LOOK AT THIS PLANT IN THE LATE 40S, STARTING WITH THE MINE

The old clay mine entrance.  I have been here many times and have actually gone inside for some distance before the water and obvious slate fall turned me around.  It now has a metal gate blocking the entrance and is hard to get to.


 

Men drilling the clay.  Other than not being as dirty, clay mining is pretty much just like coal mining.

 

Few clay mines around here were as automated as the coal mines at the time.

 

 

Even in the late 40s,  Mules were still used here for their cost effectiveness.

 

The clay miners. One might be your father or grandfather, especially if you lived near the plant.

 

This is one of the kilns where the brick was baked.  Most brick made here was fire brick shipped out of state.

 

Checking the "glory hole" for heat.

 

Working with small block here in a very hot environment.  I doubt OSHA would approve today.

 

 

Hardened block ready to transport.

 





 

 

The green line shows the old conveyor route up the hill to the mine.  You can also see the pond just above it. 


This is a shot of the pond that I took a couple of years ago.

 


Clay Mine in West Virginia

 This is my friend Danny Davidson on one of his many trips to the old clay mine entrance.






Kanawha Brick

 

Kanawha Brick

If you're the least bit interested in learning more about the local clay mines....


ELKLAND  FIRE BRICK COMPANY  1927

Later Charleston Vitreous Clay Products Company.. specializing in glazed building tiles

Elkland Clay Mine

Henry Ford Brick


Henry Ford got much of his materials to build cars and factories from West Virginia.  He bought coal and coal mines to heat his furnaces and to make steel.  He also needed brick,  both to build his factories and to build his ovens.  Most of that brick came from right here on the Elk River, because it was considered the finest clay of its kind.  The fire brick was of exceptional quality, and so he purchased the entire production.







Elkland Fire Brick Co



This is a color sample of the tiles they made.  If you look around Charleston and beyond,  you will see this product in just about every old school and office building built here in the last 100 years.  They also made white and blue wall and floor tiles,  fire brick, and 10 colors of regular building brick.


Elkland Fire Brick Co

The photos above were taken at the old Elkland mine area in 2015.  Shafts, bits of machinery and broken tile still litter the landscape.  Most of Coonskin Park sits atop a large labyrinth of clay mine shafts.




Clay map2

This map shows the main clay mines in red,  while the yellow represents clay surface operations.




 

THE RALPH BARD STORY

Ralph Austin Bard (July 29, 1884 – April 5, 1975) was a Chicago financier.  His son wrote the following:

In 1939, my father asked me if I would like to help rescue a difficult investment he and others had made in a tile and brick plant in Charleston, West Virginia, which was  losing $25,000 per month. So we moved east. After observing operations for a month, I decided that I understood the business and fired the plant manager, the sales manager and several others, and took over all their jobs. All losses stopped, but my wife and family saw little of me for two years, and I became very unpopular with the CIO. and the United Mine Workers.  At one time, two C.I.O. agents tried to push me into a hot kiln and later a miner arranged to drop a large chunk of clay on my head in our deep mine.  In 1941 with one more child, a son, we left Charleston Clay Products, leaving the company in good hands.
World War II changed all our lives. My father, Ralph A. Bard was Assistant Secretary of the Navy (later Undersecretary) and because of this I didn't want to accept a commission in the armed services, but I did want to participate. I enlisted in the Marine Corps as a private and went to boot camp at Parris Island....

After the war, I figured it was a perfect time to be self-employed. Rawleigh Warner, Jr. (1944) and I formed our own company, Warner-Bard, and had an interesting time finding financial backing to launch people with new ideas and inventions, some good and some terrible. Rawleigh left to work in the oil business and, later, became Chairman and C.E.O. of Mobil Oil.  In Barrington Hills, outside of Chicago, we added another daughter to our family. I visited Charleston Clay Products and was surprised to find large shipments of tile going to Toronto - too far for us to ship before the war. I went to Toronto to see why, and was amazed at the enormous growth and opportunities there. Oil had been discovered in 1946, and there was a ferment of oil and mining exploration. I was fortunate to meet some of the mining, oil and banking leaders of Canada and, eventually, organized an investment company with backing from some of them and U.S. investors. Pretty exciting times !


 

More... From the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, 1905

In Kanawha county, in 1905, there were three brick plants, manufacturing building and paving brick in the city of Charleston:   The W. Va. Clay Products Company, The Standard Brick Company and The Kanawha Brick Company. Most would continue to be worked into at least the 1950s.


West Virginia Clay Products Company.

"The plant of this company was built near the close of the year 1902, two and one-half miles west of Charleston on the Kanawha & Michigan railroad. The plant was a very substantial one, with a large equipment of machinery, housed in large and well constructed buildings. The cars were hauled from the mine by electric trolley and the buildings lighted by electricity. It was one of the most expensive plants in the State, but was destroyed by fire in the fall of 1904 and has not been rebuilt. It manufactured fire brick, building brick and a very high quality of paving block. The destruction of the plant was a great loss to the brick industry of the State. 

West Virginia Clay Products Company Mine Two

This plant was formerly the Charleston Fire Brick Company, and on pages 231-233 of Vol. Ill, West Virginia Geological Survey, the following description is given:

"The plant of this company is located up Elk river two miles from Charleston at Two Mile creek station on the Coal & Coke railroad. It is one of the old brick yards of the Charleston region, and has been used from time to time for the manufacture of fire brick, but it has been idle since 1901. During that year 1,500,000 fire brick were made for the coke ovens of the *Kay Coal Company.

"The capacity of the plant is 25,000 bricks a day. The plant is equipped for the manufacture of stiff-mud building brick, though none has been made for some years. The equipment consists of a nine-foot dry pan, six-foot wooden pug mill, Bucyrus auger of 30,000 capacity, Eagle repress. The building bricks were dried in minetrack tunnel drier heated by fires below. The fire brick were dried on a heated floor large enough to hold 10,000 brick. The building brick were burned in one up-draft kiln, and the fire brick in two round down-draft kilns, 26 feet in diameter, drawing into one stack.

"The river clay from a ten-foot pit near the mill was used for building brick. The fire brick were made from a mixture of one third flint clay and about two-thirds plastic clay from the mine on the hill back of the plant.

"Clay Mine.—The clay is worked in an open pit one mile and a half from the plant on Elk, and 180 feet above the level of the plant. This mine could be reached by wagon road and the clay was formerly hauled to the plant by this route. Later a track was built from the mine around the hill to an incline by cable and across the railroad on raised trestle to be dumped at the mill. This track is now in bad repair but could be renewed at no great cost.

"Some of the best fire brick in the State were made for a number of years on Elk river, just above Charleston, but at the present time no fire brick are made in this vicinity. Near Charleston are located some deposits of fire clay equal to the best in the State, and to be favorably compared with standard fire clays of the Eastern states. These shales and clays make paving brick of the highest quality, and the deposits are almost unlimited. They burn both buff and red, making fine grades of pressed and ornamental building brick. Here also occur fine grained clays adapted to manufacture of pressed brick and tile, also good stoneware clays.

*Vol. Ill W. Va. Geological Survey, 1905.


 

Kanawha Brick Company

Section 1 was 1.3 Miles east of Charleston, at Mine of Kanawha Brick Company.
Section 2 was on the Elk River, the plant being at 1600 Penn. Ave.  

"At the plant of this company, one mile east of town on the Kanawha river, ten feet of river clay is worked, as well as the hard clay from the hills above. The equipment of the plant has been described in the preceding chapter with a description of the hillside clays. The river clay has been used since 1897 in the manufacture of red building brick and is burned in three up-draft kilns.

"This company has another yard on Elk river, one mile from Charleston, which was started by Mr. Isaacs seventeen years ago. The clay is ground in a Potts crusher, tempered in a twelve-foot pug mill and molded on an auger machine of 40,000 capacity, making 25,000 brick daily. The brick are dried in an eight-track steam tunnel drier, holding 72 cars, with 45,000 capacity. The brick are burned in one down-draft kiln, 28 feet in diameter, holding 60,000, and three updraft kilns, 21 arch, holding 360,000 each, and burned with gas.

"The river clay is 15 feet thick in this pit and is hauled in cars by cable to the plant. The first paving brick probably used in the United States were made from the Kanawha Valley river clays at a point further down the river, by Mr. Isaacs.

"In the Charleston region there have been a number of brick plants in operation at various times, a number of which have been unsuccessful on account of poor business management rather than on account of the quality of the clays. The first brick paved street in the United States was laid in Charleston in 1872. One block of Summers street, nearest the Kanawha river, was paved with brick set on sand, with a substructure of planks dipped in tar and also resting on sand. This block is still in use, and the street at this day is in very fair condition. For a number of years after that date, the Charleston brick was shipped into Ohio, and the first brick paved street in Columbus in the early1880's was laid with the Charleston brick, set on tarred planks.

"With the opening of the paving industry in Ohio, the sale of Charleston brick was confined to the State, and in later years they were used mainly for local trade, very few paving brick being shipped away. At the present time no paving brick are made at Charleston.


This clay is also found on the other creek valleys near Charleston, and on Ferry Branch on the south side of the Kanawha river, opposite the mouth of Elk river, where the clay is exposed along the road leading from Kanawha river to Sugar Camp creek of Davis creek, and is about 10 feet thick, 120 feet under the Ames limestone horizon.



The Standard Brick Company.

Clay was once mined near the mouth of the Kanawha Two Mile Creek by the Kanawha and New River Fire Brick Company, on the west side of the Sissonville road.

The Kanawha and New River Fire Brick Company once manufactured brick in Charleston, but the plant is now abandoned, as it was destroyed by fire in 1904, and has been rebuilt as the Standard Brick Company. The following is a short description of the original plant and mine given in Vol. IIl, pages 229-231, W. Va. Geological Survey, 1905:

"The plant of this company was built near the close of the year 1902, two and one-half miles west of Charleston on the Kanawha & Michigan railroad. The plant was a very substantial one, with a large equipment of machinery, housed in large and well constructed buildings. The cars were hauled from the mine by electric trolley and the buildings lighted by electricity. It was one of the most expensive plants in the State, but was destroyed by fire in the fall of 1904 and has not been rebuilt. It manufactured fire brick, building brick and a very high quality of paving block. The destruction of the plant was a great loss to the brick industry of the State.

"The equipment consisted of two nine-foot Stevenson dry pans, one Martin wet pan, twelve-foot plug mill, Freese auger brick machine (Mammoth Junior) of 75,000 capacity, two Raymond represses. The brick were dried in a hot air tunnel drier of eight tunnels, with capacity of 75,000 bricks. The fire brick molded by hand were dried on a floor above the drier tunnels. Hot air was forced into the drier by a large fan. The brick were burned in eight round down-draft kilns, 28 and 30 feet in diameter, holding 40,000 blocks, and in five square down-draft kilns, holding 70,000 blocks.

The clay mine is located at the side of the county road, over one-half mile north of the plant, and is opened by three entries. "The fire clay and associated mottled clays are found one mile east, by the road side and up Woodward creek, (now Woodward Drive) and of apparently the same quality. Along this creek is a deposit of pottery clay which has not been developed. "The shales found on Two Mile creek and used by the Kanawha and New River Brick Company were traced into the hills to the east near the Hannah farm as described in an earlier section. Shales of the same horizon were found at Barlow a few miles up Elk river, on the McDonald farm about 80 feet above the blue clay described above, from the same farm.



Brick



Old photos courtesy of Steve Fox

 




SIDE NOTE:

Charleston Clay Mine

In March of 2015,  the end of Yeager Airports runway over-run collapsed.  It was the highest "Fill" of its type in the United States and had been in place for years.  About a year earlier, the airport authority discovered cracks in the top of the fill.  At about that same time,  contractors were blasting away at a hill in front of and slightly to the left of the main runway in order to lower that obstacle for takeoff.  This blasting was very close to, and in some cases over top of the clay mine shafts.  Is it possible that the huge voids underground acted like a drum, amplifying the vibrations to the airport runway about 3000 feet away?   Of course as mentioned, this was the highest fill of its kind,  and the harsh winter and then heavy rains certainly contributed to its failure.  But could the blasting over the mines have contributed also?  ( The map above is showing the mine shafts in white, which you can see cover a large area.  This map is approximate, and not to be considered exact... but it's very close)

Runway Collapse
Yeager Airport Overrun Collapse.




CLAYS, ROAD MATERIALS, BUILDING STONES,



Professor G. P. Grimsley in Vol. Ill of the State Geological Survey Reports gives a general review of the clay industry in West Virginia, along with a discussion of the origin, physical and chemical properties, and classification of clays and their uses, to which the reader is referred for interesting data, and the technology of the industry. The following quotation from this volume is pertinent:

"In the Charleston region there have been a number of brick plants in operation at various times, a number of which have been unsuccessful on account of poor business management rather than on account of the quality of the clays. The first brick paved street in the United States was laid in Charleston in 1872. One block of Summers street, nearest the Kanawha river, was paved with brick set on sand, with a substructure of planks dipped in tar and also resting on sand. This block is still in use, and the street at this day is in very fair condition. For a number of years after that date, the Charleston brick was shipped into Ohio, and the first brick paved street in Columbus in the early 80's was laid with the Charleston brick, set on tarred planks.

"With the opening of the paving industry in Ohio, the sale of Charleston brick was confined to the State, and in later years, they were used mainly for local trade, very few paving brick being shipped away. At the present time no paving brick are made at Charleston.

"Some of the best fire brick in the State were made for a number of years on Elk river, just above Charleston, but at the present time no fire brick are made in this vicinity. Near Charleston are located some deposits of fire clay equal to the best in the State, and to be favorably compared with standard fire clays of the Eastern states. These shales and clays make paving brick of the highest quality, and the deposits are almost unlimited. They burn both buff and red, making fine grades of pressed and ornamental building brick. Here also occur fine grained clays adapted to manufacture of pressed b*rick and tile, also good stoneware clays.

"The area of these clays is large, and their location is close to the Great Kanawha Valley coal fields, and gas fuel Is also available. Three lines of railroads reach the field, and the Kanawha furnished water transportation for fuel and for the finished product. With all these natural advantages, the Charleston region should be the greatest center of clay industries in the State, but at the present time there are only three small yards using the river clays and one yard using the clay mined In the hill.

"It is difficult to explain the causes of the non-development of this field. There have been some discouraging failures in plants In this region, but in no case have they been due in any degree to the character of the claye. It is hoped that when the natural advantages of this region for clay working in its different lines are fully appreciated capital will come in to develop the field properly Clay products should be shipped out of this territory to supply the trade not only of West Virginia, but of the cities east, south, and even west. A careful examination of the results of the investigation of these clays now to be given, will show their high character, and their location, in part. It must be remembered that the report of these Charleston clays is not complete, and there probably exists other important deposits that were not visited in the course of this investigation. The clays which have been developed near Charleston belong to the Conemaugh Series and the Upper Kanawha Series."

In Kanawha county, at this time, there are three brick plants, manufacturing building and paving brick in the city of Charleston: The W. Va. Clay Products Company, The Standard Brick Company and The Kanawha Brick Company.

West Virginia Clay Products Company.

This plant was formerly the Charleston Fire Brick Company, and on pages 231-333 of Vol. III, West Virginia Geological Survey, the following description is given:

"The plant of this company is located up Elk river two miles from Charleston at Two Mile creek station on the Coal & Coke railroad. It is one of the old brick yards of the Charleston region, and has been used from time to time for the manufacture of fire brick, but it has been idle since 1901. During that year 1,500,000 fire brick were made for the coke ovens of the Kay Coal Company.

"The capacity of the plant is 25,000 bricks a day. The plant is equipped for the manufacture of stiff-mud building brick, though none has been made for some years. The equipment consists of a nine-foot dry pan, six-foot wooden pug mill, Bucyrus auger of 30,000 capacity, Eagle repress. The building bricks were dried in mine track tunnel drier heated by fires below. The fire brick were dried on a heated floor large enough to hold 10,000 brick. The building brick were burned in one up-draft kiln, and the -fire brick in two round down-draft kilns, 26 feet in diameter, drawing into one stack.

"The river clay from a ten-foot pit near the mill was used for building brick. The fire brick were made from a mixture of one third flint clay and about two-thirds plastic clay from the mine on the hill back of the plant.

"Clay Mine.—The clay is worked in an open pit one mile and a half from the plant on Elk, and 180 feet above the level of the plant. This mine could be reached by wagon road and the clay was formerly hauled to the plant by this route. Later a track was built from the mine around the hill to an incline by cable and across the railroad on raised trestle to be dumped at the mill. This track is now in bad repair but could be renewed at no great cost.

"The clay pit has caved along the banks and the talus covers the flint clay over much of its surface.

The Standard Brick Company.

The Kanawha and New River Fire Brick Company once manufactured brick in Charleston, but the plant is now abandoned, as it was destroyed by fire in 1904, and has been rebuilt as the Standard Brick Company. The following is a short description of the original plant and mine given in Vol. Ill, pages 229-231, W. Va. Geological Survey, 1905 :

"The plant of this company was built near the close of the year 1902, two and one-half miles west of Charleston on the Kanawha & Michigan railroad. The plant was a very substantial one, with a large equipment of machinery, housed in large and well constructed buildings. The cars were hauled from the mine by electric trolley and the buildings lighted by electricity. It was one of the most expensive plants in the State, but was destroyed by fire in the fall of 1904 and has not been rebuilt. It manufactured fire brick, building brick, and a very high quality of paving block. The destruction of the plant was a great loss to the brick industry of the State.

"The equipment consisted of two nine-foot Stevenson dry pans, one Martin wet pan, twelve-foot plug mill, Freese auger brick machine (Mammoth Junior) of 75,000 capacity, two Raymond represses. The brick were dried in a hot air tunnel drier of eight tunnels, with capacity of 75,000 bricks. The fire brick molded by hand were dried on a floor above the drier tunnels. Hot air was forced into the drier by a large fan. The brick were burned in eight round down-draft kilns, 28 and 30 feet in diameter, holding 40,000 blocks, and in five square down-draft kilns, holding 70,000 blocks. These blocks were made 8%x2%x4 inches in size.

"Clay Mine.—The clay mine is located at the side of the county road, over one-half mile north of the plant, and is opened by three entries.

Kanawha Brick Company.

On pages 262-264 of Vol. Ill of the same report the following description is given of the Kanawha Brick Company. A section of this mine has already been given on page 180 of this report.

"At the plant of this company, one mile east of town on the Kanawha river, ten feet of river clay is worked, as well as the hard clay from the hills above. The equipment of the plant has been described in the preceding chapter with a description of the hillside clays. The river clay has been used since 1897 in the manufacture of red building brick and is burned in three up-draft kilns.

"This company has another yard on 131k river, one mile from Charleston, which was started by Mr. Isaacs seventeen years ago. The clay Is ground in a Potts crusher, tempered in a twelve-foot pug mill and molded on an auger machine of 40,000 capacity, making 25,000 brick daily. The brick are dried in an eight-track steam tunnel drier, holding 72 cars, with 45,000 capacity. The brick are burned In one down-draft kiln, 28 feet in diameter, holding 60,000, and three updraft kilns, 21 arch, holding 360,000 each, and burned with gas.

"The river clay is 15 feet thick in this pit and is hauled in cars by cable to the plant. The first paving brick probably used In the united States were made from the Kanawha Valley river clays at a point further down the river, by Mr. Isaacs.

"Chemical Composition.—The clay from the Kanawha Brick Company yard on the Kanawha river above Charleston, and the yard on Elk river were analysed, showing the following composition:

John S. McDonald Fireclay.

Fireclay crops on the John S. McDonald farm at Barlow, in a railroad cut, about yż mile above Barlow Station.
 
The shales found on Two Mile creek and used by the Kanawha and New River Brick Company were traced into the hills to the east near the Hannah farm as described In an earlier section. Shales of the same horizon were found at Barlow a few miles up Elk river, on the McDonald farm about 80 feet above the blue clay described above, from the same farm. Fifteen feet of shales are exposed to the top of the hill, with heavy sandstone below. The horizon of these shales is that of the Pittsburgh red shale, the same as at Morgantown.

"Both of these shales near Charleston turn red, making a high grade building brick, and are accessible to the rail road. The McDonald shale is only a short distance from the Coal & Coke rail road, while that on the Hannah farm is about one-half mile from the Kanawha & Michigan road. Neither deposit has been developed, though both have been tested in a practical way in the local brick yards with marked success. The analyses of these shales show a close resemblance to the Morgantown shale, except they have a higher percentage of ferric iron

Coal and Coke Railroad Quarry at Charleston


"A large sandstone quarry was opened a number of years ago a short distance up Elk river from Charleston to supply stone for the locks and dams on the Kanawha river. In April 1904 the quarry was opened to supply ballast for the railroad and has been open since that time. It is located at the side of the Coal and Coke railroad tracks in the Elk river bluff one mile and a half northeast of Charleston, and is operated by the railroad company. Seventy or eighty men are employed and 250 to 300 yards of ballast quarried and crushed daily. At the present time no building stone is quarried.

"The floor of the quarry is about 30 feet above Elk river, and a small coal is found near the center of the quarry which is probably one of the Allegheny coals. This sandstone forms the upper portion of the Charleston sandstone of Campbell, or the Buffalo-Mahoning horizon and probably a part of the Freeport.

"The stone is rather fine grained, blue or gray in color with mica flakes through it. It breaks readily into blocks and shows foliation in many ledges. These plants are often curved, but the curved lines finally disappear in the solid stone.

"The face of the quarry runs northeast-southwest at an angle of nearly 45 degrees. It is 350 to 400 feet long, and worked back 40 to 60 feet.

Patrick Ryan Quarry at Charleston.

"One mile northeast of Charleston up a ravine a short distance 'from the Coal and Coke quarry, Mr. Patrick Ryan operates a sandstone quarry opened 20 years ago. Ten men are employed and two or three perch of building stone sent out daily during the working season, also 100 to 200 tons of crushed stone for concrete. Its geologic horizon is the same as at the Coal and Coke quarry.

"The sandstone is bluish gray in color, foliated with mica flakes. Some of the stone is banded with wavy red lines due to iron stain, giving a variegated color. In other ledges the stone is nearly pink in color, and the calico stone is characterized by irregular wavy bands of yellow and red through a buff or yellowish rock. The stone readily breaks along the mica planes or along the red streaks. The bands are often cross bedded and more or less curved. On account of the number of bands or planes, the stone can be split into blocks of almost any desired thickness, building blocks, curb, or flagging.

"Quarry.—The face of the quarry runs about 45 degrees northwest, 300 feet long, and worked back 30 to 40 feet. The quarry is located on Coal Branch, and was formerly worked on both sides of the creek.

Savage Quarry at Charleston.

"Mr. P. M. Savage operates a quarry at north end of Capitol street near the Coal & Coke railroad and the city of Charleston. This quarry is one of the oldest quarries near this city, and the stone is used for buildings and crushed for concrete. Twenty to thirty men are employed, and 150 to 200 tons of stone are crushed daily in an Austin No. 5 crusher. The stone is said to weigh about 2,700 pounds to the cubic yard.

"This sandstone comes at the horizon of the other Charleston quarries described above. The rock is gray or bluish gray in color with foliation planes through it, giving a banded appearance- The bands are frequently cross-bedded, and the stone splits readily along these planes. In the old exposed portion of the quarry, the stone has weathered to a buff color, and at the north end it is shaly and badly broken on outcrop.

"Through the rock occur nodules and streaks of coal, which are especially abundant about 20 feet from the top of the quarry down to near the base. The cracks and joint planes are coated with a brown discoloration which sometimes extends a few inches into the stone from the fissure lines, and is due to Iron in percolating surface waters. Some of the blocks tend to break with a shelly fracture, giving curved surface to the stone. In some parts of the quarry small, round, hard, pebbles of quartz occur, also brown chert or flint fragments.

"Quarry.—The face of the quarry runs north and south, 170 feet long with the old workings extending 80 feet further to the south. It has been worked back to the east 75 to 80 feet.













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