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Geological Society, London, Special Publications

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Berea sandstone: A heritage stone of international significance from Ohio, USA

Joseph T. Hannibal
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 486, 27 January 2020, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP486-2019-33
Joseph T. Hannibal
Cleveland Museum of Natural History1 Wade Oval Drive, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
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Abstract

Berea sandstone, a potential Global Heritage Stone Resource, has been one of the most widely used sandstones in North America. This Paleozoic sandstone, quarried for more than 200 years in Ohio, has been used across much of the continent. Thousands of commercial, residential, ecclesiastical, government and other structures have been built with Berea sandstone, including Thomas Worthington's mansion in Chillicothe, Ohio, the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, the Carnegie Library and Natural History Museum Building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and parts of the Parliament buildings in Canada. Grindstones made from Berea sandstone were shipped throughout North America, as well as to the Caribbean, South America, Europe and Asia. The stone is celebrated in a number of locations, notably Berea and Amherst, where quarries have been important historical sources of this stone. It has been known by a number of different geological and commercial names, including Berea grit and Amherst stone, complicating its identification from historical sources. Stone from the most productive quarries, however, was known to be homogeneous and can be identified by its quartz–arenite to sublithic–arenite composition, its fine to medium sand (125–350 µm) grain size and iron-cement spots. Berea sandstone continues to be quarried today in Erie and Lorain counties.

Berea sandstone, a light-coloured Paleozoic sandstone, has been extensively utilized as a dimension stone in North America. It has a long quarrying history in Ohio, having been used early on for some of the oldest stone buildings in the state, including the first Ohio Capitol (state house), built c. 1802 (Wolfe 2004). It was quarried at numerous localities across the state (Fig. 1). Over the last two centuries this sandstone has been used for thousands of structures, concentrated in the Midwest and eastern parts of the USA (Bowles 1939, p. 78), and in southern Canada. These include: the Thomas Worthington Mansion (Fig. 2a) in Chillicothe, Ohio; the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Michigan; parts of the Federal Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, Ontario; parts of the Alberta Parliament Building; parts of University of Toronto and University of Saskatchewan campus buildings; the Garfield Monument (a presidential sepulcher) in Cleveland, Ohio; City Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio; and the Carnegie Library and Natural History Museum Building in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Fig. 1.
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Fig. 1.

Map of Ohio (USA) showing county boundaries and location of representative Berea sandstone quarries throughout the state, with Berea outcrop area shown in grey (greatly simplified in central and southern Ohio so not showing outcrop area at Chillicothe). Some localities actually consist of a complex of individual quarries. Quarry localities indicated by dots in the northern part of the state are (from west to east): Norwalk area, in Huron County; Berlin Heights and Birmingham, in Erie County; Kipton, Amherst area (extending from northern Amherst south to central South Amherst), and Elyria in Lorain County; Berea, Independence, and Chagrin Falls in Cuyahoga County; Peninsula in Summit County; Chardon area in Geauga County; Windsor Mills in Ashtabula County; Mesopotamia in Trumbull County. Localities in central and southern Ohio are: (from north to south): Leesville in Crawford County; Iberia, Mt. Gilead and Fulton in Morrow County; Sunbury in Delaware County; Gahanna in Franklin County; Chillicothe in Ross County; Cynthiana and Waverly in Pike County.

Fig. 2.
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Fig. 2.

Works made with Berea sandstone that were designed by well-known architects. (a) Thomas Worthington Mansion (Adena) in Chillicothe, Ohio, designed by Benjamin Latrobe (2019 photo). (b) One of the Guardians of Transportation in Cleveland, designed by Frank Walker of Walker & Weeks (2016 photo).

American architects of note who have designed structures using Berea sandstone include Benjamin Latrobe (1764–1820), the USA's pre-eminent early architect (and a building stone expert). He designed the Thomas Worthington Mansion, which was made from Berea sandstone quarried on site (Wolfe 2004). The prominent Cleveland architect Charles Schweinfurth (1856–1919) also made use of Berea sandstone for buildings and bridges, as did the Walker & Weeks architectural firm (1911–53), which designed the iconic Guardians of Transportation (Fig. 2b; 1932) in Cleveland.

Berea sandstone was also used for grindstones, which were widely used in North America and exported to other continents.

This chapter provides material that would support a proposal of Berea sandstone as a Global Heritage Stone Resource. The history of its quarrying and uses is reviewed, as is the complex geological and commercial nomenclature of this stone so as to allow historical references to this stone to be correctly interpreted. An extensive, wide-ranging list of references is included to document the geology, history and uses of this stone over time.

Introductory history of quarrying and uses of Berea sandstone

Following early use of Berea sandstone for dimension stone in southern and central Ohio at the beginning of the nineteenth century, intense quarrying shifted to northern Ohio. Large-scale quarrying of the Berea sandstone began in Berea (Figs 1 & 3a), about 20 miles south of the major Lake Erie port city of Cleveland. Canal systems, especially the Erie Canal (completed in 1825), which connected eastern New York State with Buffalo, New York, allowed material from Ohio quarries to be transported to the eastern USA, first by lake steamer to Buffalo, and then by canal freighter along the Erie Canal. This route was taken advantage of by grindstone producers (Anonymous 1851). The Welland Canal (completed in 1829) in Canada, connecting Lake Ontario with Lake Erie, also facilitated importation into Canada. By the 1830s, large amounts of sandstone flagstone, grindstone and building stone were also being shipped along the Great Lakes to Michigan (Mather 1838, p. 10).

Fig. 3.
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Fig. 3.

Quarry and factory in Berea, Ohio: (a) Big Quarry, c. 1890; (b) McDermott's grindstone factory, c. 1890. Photos courtesy of the Berea Historical Society.

Completion of the Ohio & Erie Canal from Cleveland in the north to the Ohio River on the southern border of the state in 1834 (although portions were open as early as 1827) allowed for transport of stone from Berea sandstone quarries that were developed along the canal's route. The stone was also used for canal locks. The canal closely approached outcrops of Berea sandstone in northern Ohio, especially in Independence and Peninsula (Hannibal 2009, p. 80). In part, the canal also paralleled the strike of the Berea in southern Ohio, as it traversed towns such as Waverly.

It was the production of grindstones in northern Ohio in the 1840s that first made this stone famous. Berea sandstone quarries in Berea and Amherst, Ohio became the world's largest producers of grindstones (Fig. 3b; Kindle 1895, p. 358). Because of the relative angularity of its quartz grains, its silica cement and its degree of porosity, the stone worked extremely well when made into grindstones for sharpening metal tools. Individual worn exterior quartz grains would detach at a slow rate during grinding as they became worn, exposing sharper grains beneath, preventing the grindstone from becoming glazed (Merrill 1891, p. 276; Van Horn 1931, p. 109) even when not used with water (Hawes 1884, p. 190). The northern Ohio towns of Grafton, Independence, Windsor and, particularly, Berea became especially known for the production of grindstones. Early use was international, as grindstones made from Berea sandstone were sent to Canada as well as to various parts of the USA and, by the late 1850s, the stone was being aggressively exported to Canada (Joblin 1869). Berea sandstone grindstones were also exported to South America, Europe and Asia (Bownocker 1915, p. 116). Grindstones, along with building stone, continued to be a major product of Berea sandstone quarries from the nineteenth into the twentieth century.

Use of Berea sandstone for dimension stone grew in the late 1840s and 1850s in Berea and elsewhere, despite one geological report presented at a scientific meeting in 1858 (Brainerd 1874) that found the stone at Berea to be wanting as a building stone, although stone from the same formation at other unspecified quarries was found to be fine for this purpose. Brainerd was proved wrong. Quarries producing Berea sandstone proliferated.

The development of railways in the second half of the nineteenth century facilitated the stone's distribution for building stone and other uses. These included the Toledo Norwalk & Cleveland line (1852) and other longer railway lines (Camp 2006a). By 1870, geologist John Newberry (1870, p. 21) could write that the Berea is not only largely employed within our State, but exported both east and west, and is being used for the most beautiful and expensive public and private buildings in all our great cities.

Flagstones became a very important product as cities began to improve walkways in the late 1800s (Anonymous 1937a). By 1890, curbstones made from Berea sandstone were being used across eastern North America, from cities in Iowa and Nebraska in the west into New York State in the east, and at least as far north as Toronto in Canada. The stone was also used for columns – some quite tall – made from single pieces of stone (Anonymous 1899). In the early 1890s, George Merrill, the most prominent expert on dimension stone in the USA, could write that ‘one of the most, if not the most important stone of the great central region of the United States is the Berea grit of Ohio’ (Merrill 1892, p. 267).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the quarries producing Berea sandstone in the Amherst area were noted as being ‘some of the greatest sandstone quarries in the world’ (Olmstead 1901, p. 421). An industry publication (Anonymous 1900, p. 78) called the Cleveland Stone Company ‘one of the greatest stone producing concerns in the world’. However, beginning in the mid-1890s and extending into the twentieth century, several factors led to a reduction in demand for Berea sandstone, principally competition from bricks, Portland cement (which came to replace natural cement) and other types of building stone (Bownocker 1915 p. 115). Other sandstones as well as other types of stone could be more easily transported because of the development of the railway across the eastern part of North America. Indiana limestone (Salem Limestone quarried in south central Indiana) began to make inroads into the traditional markets for Berea sandstone once railways connected to its quarries in south-central Indiana (Shaffer 2019). Even in Cleveland, where there was support for the use of local Berea sandstone, large downtown structures were constructed from limestone and granite (Rarick 1986, p. 30), sometimes replacing older structures made from Berea sandstone. Still, in the early twentieth century, Berea sandstone was being used for structures from the east coast to Texas and Nebraska, as well as Canada (Anonymous 1912). There was consolidation of quarrying operations, however, in 1929 as most northern Ohio quarries were purchased by the Cleveland Quarries Company, then headquartered in Cleveland.

In the late 1930s, Ohio was still the leading producer of sandstone in the USA, supplying a little more than half of all sandstone quarried in the country (Bowles 1939, p. 76), and the Berea sandstone quarries of northern Ohio, especially those in the Amherst area, were the largest of these producers. In the 1940s Berea sandstone was being used for curbstone, flagstone, shore armour, refractory lining and grindstones (Stout 1944, p. 79), as well as facing, trim and sculptural details of all kinds of buildings, especially in the eastern part of North America. Production of flagstone would remain important into the twentieth century until concrete took its place after the mid-century. Curbstones remained an important product for a longer period, until they too were replaced by concrete. Production of Berea sandstone declined in the second half of the twentieth century. This led to the closure of most of the old quarries, but the stone continues to be quarried in Birmingham, Erie County (Fig. 4), about 14 km (9 miles) from the classic Amherst area quarries, for current architectural use, replacement stone for historic structures, and other uses. It also continues to be quarried at Kipton, in Lorain County.

Fig. 4.
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Fig. 4.

Birmingham, Erie County, quarry (2015 photo, courtesy of the Ohio Division of Geological Survey).

Global Heritage Stone Resource recognition

Berea sandstone fits the criteria that Marker (2015) has outlined for recognition as a Global Heritage Stone Resource. The stone has been utilized for almost two centuries as a dimension stone, it has been used for structures across the eastern half of North America and in Canada, and in the form of grindstones it has been shipped around the world. Prominent buildings, including the Federal Parliament Buildings in Canada, the Michigan State Capitol and the Carnegie Library and Natural History Museum in the USA, have utilized the stone. Berea sandstone is celebrated as a cultural icon in two Ohio cities, Amherst and Berea, and is still available. Recognition as a Global Heritage Stone Resource would bring additional attention to this stone and to the many historic structures built with it, including many buildings and other structures on the United States and Canadian National Registers of Historic Places. It would also support the efforts of local communities who have recognized historical quarries as places of importance, and who have tried, with some success, to save historic structures made from this stone.

Global Heritage Stone Resource elements

Formal name for this proposed Global Heritage Stone Resource

Berea sandstone is the formal name for this proposed Global Heritage Stone Resource. The spelling of the proposed heritage-stone name, Berea sandstone, is the same as that of the lithostratigraphic unit Berea Sandstone, but the word ‘sandstone’ in the Heritage Stone name begins with a lower case ‘s’ so that it can be distinguished from the formal lithostratigraphic name which begins with a capital ‘S’.

Origin of name

Berea sandstone is named for the quarry town (now city) of Berea, Ohio, which was the first major centre of quarrying of this stone in northern Ohio, and where the stone was noted for its thickness, uniformity and usefulness for both building and for the manufacture of grindstones and other products.

Stratigraphic (geological) name

Berea sandstone is quarried from the formation named Berea Sandstone (Fig. 5). The formation was originally named Berea grit by John Newberry, the head of the second Ohio Geological Survey, who provided a terse description (‘drab sandstone’) of the unit, noting its thickness (50 ft) in northern Ohio and the thickness of the rock units below (Bedford shale) and above it (Cuyahoga shale; now the Cuyahoga Formation) (Newberry 1870, p. 21; 1871, p. 22). His very brief description has been accepted as the naming of the Berea by the various lexicons of Geologic Names of the United States (as Berea sandstone; e.g. Wilmarth 1938, p. 165) as well as by others. Newberry subsequently noted that he had named the unit for ‘the locality that has rendered it most famous’ (Newberry 1873a, p. 186). He later (Newberry 1874b, p. 88) explained his choice of the name, noting that ‘I have designated [it] as the Berea grit, from the fact that it is the rock so extensively quarried at Berea, Cuyahoga County’. He did not name or indicate a type section, but the unit is well exposed along the Rocky River in Berea and in the adjacent quarries and this is referred to as the type area in this chapter.

Fig. 5.
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Fig. 5.

Chart of formal and informal Ohio rock-unit terminology noted in the text.

The term ‘grit’ was used in the sense of ‘coarse, rough sandstone, especially as used for millstones and grindstones’ (Arkell & Tomkeieff 1953, p. 53). Orton (1879) used the name Berea sandstone in preference to Berea grit, but he did not do so exclusively as he also used the name Berea grit (e.g. Orton 1893). The name Berea grit continued to be used into the early twentieth century. Prosser (1912), in his detailed study of Devonian and Mississippian rocks of northeastern Ohio, was also inconsistent in his usage of terms, using both Berea grit and Berea sandstone. The term Berea sandstone largely replaced the name Berea grit in the twentieth century. Bownocker (1915) used the name Berea sandstone in his Building Stones of Ohio, and others (e.g. Cushing et al. 1931; Stout et al. 1943; Stout 1944) favoured the term Berea sandstone as well. The term Berea grit is no longer used except in reference to historical usage. The use of a capital ‘s’ in Berea Sandstone as a formal rock unit was adopted during the second half of the twentieth century with the publication of codes of stratigraphic nomenclature recommending or requiring such capitalization (e.g. American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature 1961).

Other names

Before and even somewhat after the Berea sandstone was formally named by Newberry, the stone was noted as grindstone grit, for instance by Brainerd (1874) and Whittlesey (1869, 1871). The Berea was also once referred to the Waverly series (group) (Briggs 1838, pp. 79–80; Newberry 1878), and so was called Waverly sandstone along with other sandstones then referred to as the Waverly series, resulting in a confusing set of names. Whittlesey (1869, p. 38) used the term Waverly for what is now known as the Euclid bluestone, a subunit of the Bedford Shale (Fig. 5), which lies stratigraphically below the Berea. The Euclid is typically separated from the Berea by grey shale. Other sandstones above the Berea were also once referred to as the Waverly; these sandstones are now referred to as the Cuyahoga Formation.

In the nineteenth century, southern Ohio exposures of Berea sandstone were originally known by names such as Waverly sandstone (Newberry 1878) or Waverly quarry-stone (Orton 1888a, p. 35), or noted as belonging to the Waverly Quarry System (Orton 1874, p. 621, fig. 4), as distinguished from the Berea sandstone of northern Ohio with which it was not then correlated. Thus Newberry's report, ‘Building and ornamental stones’ (Newberry 1878, p. 130) discussed Berea grit separately from Waverly stone from southern Ohio, which in part does belong to the Berea. This was corrected by later geologists, including Bownocker (1915), after deposits in southern and central Ohio were correlated with the Berea sandstone in northern Ohio. The rocks encompassed in what was the Waverly are now known to consist of rocks belonging to two different systems, the Devonian and the Carboniferous. The term Waverly has now long been abandoned.

Drillers have referred to the Berea in the subsurface as the Berea sand and as the First Berea. The driller's name Second Berea has been used for a subsurface unit (Cussewago sandstone), which is stratigraphically lower than the Berea sandstone and which is not correlated to the surface outcrops of the Berea used for dimension stone.

Commercial designations

A variety of commercial names have been applied to the Berea sandstone. Berea sandstone has been known by that name commercially, not only for stone from Berea itself. The Cleveland Quarries Company (1951) has sold the stone under the name Berea Sandstone for some time from its quarries in Lorain and Erie Counties. In recent years it has sold the stone under the trademarked name Berea Sandstone™ (https://www.clevelandquarries.com/). Cleveland Quarries have also sold the stone in the past under the name Amherst sandstone (Cleveland Quarries Company 1960s?). Berea sandstone has also been sold under a variety of names, including Amherst stone, Columbia stone, Grafton sandstone, Iberia sandstone, Independence stone, Kipton Northern Ohio sandstone (Anonymous 1940), Peninsula stone, Waverly stone (Waverly Stone Co. 1892) and Waverly quarry stone, and based on the location of specific quarries. Cleveland sandstone is a name that has been used by the Cleveland Quarries Company in the past (Cleveland Quarries Company 1941), based on the company's former headquarters building in Cleveland rather than a quarry location. The Grafton Stone Company (1892) also sold stone under the name Ohio building stone. Various stone types quarried in the Amherst area quarries were designated by their specific quarry, for instance Grey Canyon sandstone quarried in the ‘Canyon’ quarry, named for the quarry's configuration, not a locality.

In some cases commercial names for stone used for the Berea seem to have also been used for stone that was not quarried from the rock unit Berea Sandstone. Cleveland Quarries, for instance, once operated quarries in the Marietta area of southeastern Ohio, as well as in Michigan (Cleveland Quarries Company 1941; Bond 2003, p. 63). Therefore stone from Marietta that is not the Berea, but which was mainly quarried in the Marietta and Hundred sandstones (Collins & Smith 1977, p. 127), may have then been called Cleveland Sandstone. Cleveland Stone also sold grindstones made from sandstones other than the Berea, including Washington stone quarried in the Marietta area.

Berea sandstone was also extensively known as Ohio sandstone, and still is to some extent. The Grafton Stone Company (1892) called the stone they quarried Ohio building stone and some authors have preferred the name Ohio sandstone (e.g. Terrell 1879, p. 27). Kipton Quarry Stone Products in Lorain County, Ohio, currently sells Berea sandstone under the name Ohio sandstone. The stone is still sometimes cited as Ohio sandstone, especially in reports of the stone being used in Canada (e.g. Lawrence 2001). The name ‘Ohio sandstone’ has never been as extensively used, however, for the Berea sandstone as the term Indiana limestone has been used in the adjacent state of Indiana for the Salem Limestone (Shaffer 2019). To complicate the nomenclature even further, some references to Ohio sandstone may refer to sandstones quarried in Ohio other than the Berea.

Historically, quarry workers also have given certain beds of Berea sandstone descriptive names based on their bedding (Bownocker 1915, pp. 78–80; Van Horn 1931, p. 109; Potter et al. 1983, p. 46). These were shell rock (thinly layered), split rock (evenly bedded, preferred stone), liver rock (more homogeneous, especially desirable for grindstones), spider-web rock (stone with festoon ripple marks) and cross-grained rock (cross-bedded). The terms liver rock and split rock continue to be used by the Cleveland Quarries Company today.

Area of occurrence

Berea sandstone crops out in a wide arc from Portsmouth in southernmost Ohio north to Norwalk in northern Ohio and from there east to western Ashtabula County and Trumbull County in easternmost Ohio. The rock unit extends into adjacent states in the subsurface, but as a Heritage Stone name, Berea sandstone would be restricted to stone from the rock unit Berea Sandstone in Ohio.

Principal location of quarries

Berea sandstone has been historically quarried along its outcrop area across northern Ohio and into southern Ohio (Fig. 1). The two most important quarry areas historically have centred on Berea, Ohio, in Cuyahoga County, and the Amherst/South Amherst area in Lorain County and Birmingham in Erie County, 9 km (6 miles) west of the Amherst area quarries. The southern Ohio quarries were of more local importance.

Berea quarries

John Baldwin (1799–1884) is credited with initiating larger-scale commercial use of Berea sandstone in Berea, originally for grindstones in 1828 (Baldwin 1874) or 1833 (Baldwin 1936), and later for mechanizing the process of manufacturing grindstones (Baldwin 1874; Webber 1925, pp. 46–47). Berea would become the home of several quarrying and manufacturing operations and the Berea quarries (Fig. 3a) continued to comprise the centre of the Berea sandstone quarrying industry for the next several decades. Grindstones (Fig. 3b) continued to be the dominant product of the Berea quarries in the early years. Various other types of dimension stone were also produced. Stone in the Berea area was noted for beds with planar tops and bottoms (Bowles 1917, p. 77), which meant that the tops and bottoms did not have to be trimmed (‘scabbed’).

Individually owned quarries in Berea were consolidated into the Berea Stone Company in 1871. Steam engines (Fig. 3a) were introduced into the quarries in 1888. By 1911, however, the centre of quarrying changed as stone from Lorain County quarries had become the most desirable stone for building purposes. Stone from Berea (Prosser 1912, p. 806) quarries was being used mostly for ‘curbing, flagging, grindstones, and scythe stone’. Berea stone also found a use as bridge stone and for breakwaters. This production would continue until the quarrying in Berea ceased in November of 1946, although curbstone and grindstone production there continued for a time (Drake 1946), using stone from the quarries in the Amherst area.

Portions of the city of Berea and the adjacent parklands are now essentially complex quarryscapes, with terrain and streams modified to accommodate quarrying activity in the past, and then modified several times again to create parkland and land for development beginning in the 1940s. Parts of the quarries are now lakes, but other parts have been filled in and municipal buildings and the public library built on top.

Lorain County and eastern Erie County quarries

Sandstone quarries were opened up in Lorain County at least by the 1840s (Sego 1996). Quarrying in Lorain began by 1847 and the first quarrying in the Grafton area began in 1849 (Smith & Justy 2011, p. 31). Early quarries in Lorain County and eastern Erie County quarried stone at ledges (high areas) where the stone was an estimated 60 ft in thickness (Newberry 1874a, p. 210), but by 1901 quarries in the Amherst area were 50 m (165 ft) deep (Olmstead 1901) and they would eventually prove to exceed 70/73 m (230/240 ft) in depth. These very thick deposits, sourced from the east and deposited on the basin edge to the far west, were termed the quarrystone facies by Pashin & Ettensohn (1995). These thick deposits of Berea sandstone have also been exploited in easternmost Erie County and, to a lesser extent, in Crawford County. In the nineteenth century shipping was by train and boat on the Great Lakes from the harbour in Lorain. As was true for Berea stone, quarries in the Amherst area had an international aspect, as one of the early quarries in the area was purchased by a contractor from Toronto, Canada.

Smaller quarries in the area began to close in the early 1900s. The LaGrange quarries, for example, were closed in 1915 by the Cleveland Stone Company (Smith & Justy 2011, p. 70). In the 1950s the Cleveland Quarries introduced movable equipment into its quarries to replace the old guy derrick system in Lorain and Erie Counties (Anonymous 1958) (although some derricks have remained in use). Quarrying activity in this area has had its ups and downs in subsequent years. The 1990s were a rough time for the Amherst area quarries, with closings and changes in ownership.

Other northern Ohio quarries

There once were a large number of additional quarries in northern Ohio, across the entire outcrop area as far east as western Ashtabula and Trumbull counties; only representative quarries are indicated in Figure 1. The quarries in Peninsula, Ohio, are the best known by virtue of their being preserved in and near the Deep Lock Quarry Summit County Metro Park, which is within the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Only remnants (parts of quarry walls, series of quarry marks in outcrops) of some quarries remain.

Quarries in central and southern Ohio

Many quarries in the Berea sandstone were opened in central and southern Ohio, and these include some of the oldest quarries of the stone (Wolfe 2004, 2008). Most were relatively small and were not considered to be of the highest quality for building stone compared with the Berea sandstone of northern Ohio, however. This includes the relatively thin-bedded (compared with the vast thicker-bedded northern deposits) Berea in the Chillicothe area (Hyde 1921, p. 92). Quarries in Sunbury in central Ohio and Waverly in southern Ohio were more successful (Orton 1879; Bownocker 1915), but the southern quarries were never as successful as those in northern Ohio. This was because the stone in the south generally lacked the thickness and uniformity of the stone of the great northern Ohio quarries, and so was not as useful for the range of products produced by the northern quarries.

Geological age and geological setting

Berea Sandstone occurs in the Appalachian Basin geological province, a large wedge-shaped Paleozoic basin located to the west of the Appalachian Mountains. It was deposited around the time of the transition from the Devonian to the Mississippian, about 359 Ma. For many years it was referred to as Carboniferous (Prosser 1903; Cushing 1931) or the Mississippian (the Subcarboniferous in older geological literature; the Mississippian Subsystem in very recent literature) but, in recent decades (Harper 1993), the Berea Sandstone has been considered to be Upper Devonian (Famennian, praesulcata conodont Zone (Baird et al. 2018)). There have been problems with the current Devonian–Carboniferous boundary (=the Devonian–Mississippian boundary) based on conodonts, however (Richards 2013). Because of a proposed change in the position of the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the base of the Carboniferous (=Devonian–Mississippian Boundary) in France, however, it is possible that the Berea may again be considered Mississippian.

The Berea is underlain by the Bedford Shale, which is currently considered to be Famennian, but which may be Kinderhookian with the moving of the global stratotype boundary point. In rare cases, the Berea comes into direct contact with the Ohio Shale, which normally underlies the Bedford Shale. The Berea is overlain by the Mississippian (Kinderhookian) Orangeville shale/Sunbury Shale of the Cuyahoga Formation (Figs 5 & 6). Various authors have interpreted the dark shale above the Berea as one or the other of these units. In northern Ohio the term Orangeville has been used (Fig. 5), with some authors considering the Sunbury as a part of the Orangeville (e.g. Szmuc 1970, pp. 38–39, but the Ohio Geological Survey uses Sunbury Shale for the basal-most shale throughout the state; Schumacher et al. 2013, p. 75).

Fig. 6.
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Fig. 6.

Geological map showing the area around Berea, Ohio. Larger bold lettering shows current system assignments: Dbd, (Devonian) Bedford Shale: Db, (Devonian) Berea Sandstone; Co, (Carboniferous) Orangeville; Quat, a Quaternary buried valley, which limited the area that could be quarried. Lighter Cb to the lower left of bold Db reflects earlier assignment of the Berea sandstone to the Carboniferous. Map taken from more extensive map in Cushing et al. (1931, pl. 20). North is to the top of the map. Scale bar, 1 km. See text for additional information on changes in system assignment for the Paleozoic units.

The Berea caps a generally upward-shallowing sequence of Upper Devonian/Lower Mississippian rocks. At the type area along and near the Rocky River in Berea and at many other outcrops, the underlying Bedford is composed of grey and red shale and the overlying Orangeville is a darker grey shale. At other localities the underlying unit is grey shale. The grey shale contains a generally sparse marine fauna (Pashin & Ettensohn 1992) indicative of a disaerobic depositional environment. The Berea formerly has been interpreted as a deltaic deposit with a northern source (de Witt 1951; Pepper et al. 1954). Illustrations from Pepper et al. (1954) have been widely copied, but are no longer considered to be correct. Berea has more recently been considered to be composed of alluvial deposits associated with westward-prograding deltas during the Acadian orogeny (Pashin & Ettensohn 1995). Deposition of the Berea appears to be associated with a biocrisis and glacial build-up (Baird et al. 2018). The unit is currently being considered as having been deposited as the final stage of an end-Devonian ice-house sequence (Baird et al. 2014, 2018).

Generally, the Berea is a subtly upward-shallowing sequence of sands. There are indications of tidal influence in places (Duncan & Wells 1992), but the unit also includes fluvial sequences indicated by features such as climbing ripples. At some localities, including the type area in Berea, the Berea sandstone is capped by a thin, heavily burrowed sandstone layer that is interpreted as being basal Mississippian by Baird et al. (2013) and possibly correlated with the Bartholomew siltstone of de Witt (1951, p. 1364).

Berea sandstone in western Lorain County and eastern Erie County is especially thick (>61 m; >200 ft). In places thickness is quite variable: there are localities where the Berea is lacking. Based on striking variation in thickness, quarry workers have referred to the Berea as occurring in ‘islands’. The variation in thickness, and in the irregular nature of the base of the Berea in places, has classically been interpreted as owing to erosion and channeling (Cushing 1915, Cushing et al. 1931). In the last few decades, this variation has been attributed to large slumps and diapirs in places, formed as sandstone subsided into still soft muds (Pashin & Ettensohn 1995; Wells et al. 1991, fig. 13). There are, however, true channels at the base and within in the Berea (Hannibal et al. 2006, fig. 2; Baird et al. 2018).

The Berea has been mapped in different ways at various scales over time. A map in Pepper et al. (1954, pl. 1) shows the outcrop area as well as subsurface facies of the Berea. Recent Ohio Survey mapping has combined the Berea with the underlying Bedford formation and other units so as to create mappable units at the scale of the current geological map of Ohio (Slucher et al. 2006).

Petrographic name

Various geologists have given various petrographic names to the stone, for instance: quartz arenite to sublitharenite and subarkose (Pashin & Ettensohn 1995), arenaceous sandstone or lithic arenite (Barefield & Shakoor 2006), and protoquartzite (another term for a sublitharenite) (Pettijohn et al. 1973, p. 169, table 6–7). Berea sandstone is mainly a well-sorted quartz arenite to sublitharenite.

Primary colours and aesthetics of Berea sandstone

The stone has been sold under the names of buff and grey, for the most part. Merrill (1891, p. 275) described it as ‘a very light buff, grey, or blue-grey colour.’ In the late nineteenth century the Cleveland Stone Company (c. 1890) sold the stone from the Amherst area as Buff Amherst and Blue Amherst. Today the stone colour varieties sold are ‘Birmingham buff’ and ‘Amherst grey’, although both colours are quarried in Birmingham. The former is typically pale yellowish-brown, slightly lighter than 10 YR 6/2 (Munsell Color 2009), whereas the latter is very light grey (Munsell Color 2009, N8), but these shades vary. There are shades of yellow to red and brown, and some horizontally colour-banded Berea, but, with some exceptions, that stone has not been used for dimension stone. In the past stone was also sold under the names Grey Silvertone Amherst stone and Birmingham warm-tone buff. In recent years the Cleveland Quarries Company has sold a red sandstone from England to complement its offerings of Berea sandstone.

The colour of Berea stone after a number of years tends to change, often to yellower shades (Merrill 1891, p. 276). The stone, probably owing to its relatively rough surface when seen in detail, does tend to trap pollutants over time, causing the outer portion of the stone to darken. Its iron and manganese content might also affect this. Most older structures faced with the stone have been cleaned in the past. Many of these were cleaned with destructive techniques, particularly sand blasting, unfortunately removing the original surface of the stone. More recently buildings have been cleaned using techniques that appear to cause less damage. Such darkening is not unique to the Berea, however. Buildings of other stone, including Indiana limestone, have also been subject to such darkening.

Natural variability

Berea sandstone quarried for building purposes in northeastern Ohio is fairly uniform, fine to medium (125–350 µm) in grain size using standard sand-size units (Fig. 7a). However, stone found in central and southern Ohio can be finer, ranging into siltstone (<62 µm). Stone from different quarries varies somewhat in chemical composition (Table 1). The stone contains sparse pebbles at some localities, for instance at Deep Lock Quarry, in some layers exposed along the Berea falls in Berea, and at the base of the unit in Independence. The pebbly layers of the stone were not typically used for dimension stone, except in some cases where the pebbles were small and sparse. The sandstone used for cultural uses is mostly composed of subangular to subrounded quartz grains (Fig. 7b). The dominant mineral is quartz. The stone contains a small amount of feldspar, clay and dolomite, as well as silica cement. Some of the basal Berea differs somewhat, however (Churcher et al. 1991). Most Berea sandstone used for building purposes can be identified based on its grain size and composition, particularly when it contains small reddish-brown spots or areas (Fig. 7a, b) that consist of iron cement. This is particularly true for Birmingham buff, but grey Berea when oxidized may also contain these.

Fig. 7.
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Fig. 7.

Berea sandstone samples. (a) Overall view of subtly laminated Berea sandstone from Amherst used for one of the Guardians of Transportation, scale is marked in 1 cm increments; (b) closer view of Berea sandstone. Most grains are quartz. Reddish-brown areas are iron cement. Scale is 1 mm in length (2019 photos).

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Table 1.

Chemical analysis of Berea sandstone at quarry sites in Ohio (%)

The stone may contain fine, horizontal laminations (Fig. 7a), cross-bedding and distinctive shallow ripple marks with distinctive microlaminae composed of longitudinal spurs and scours (Fig. 8a) sensu Rubin & Carter (2006, p. 77). Owing to their swirling patterns as seen in horizontal cuts, these distinctive ripple marks have also been informally described as tornadoes by quarry workers. Berea sandstone also may contain reddish-brown, brown, grey and green-coloured clasts, pieces of fossil wood (Fig. 8b), concretions of various sizes (Fig. 8c) and other inclusions. Stones containing fossil wood and concretions have generally been used for armour stone and bridge stone, but also sometimes for pavement stone or even for buildings.

Fig. 8.
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Fig. 8.

Features of Berea sandstone quarried in Ohio. (a) Horizontal section of Berea Sandstone, used for cladding of a newer building, Berea, Ohio (2018 photo), containing distinctive shallow ripple marks with microlaminae (probably quarried in Birmingham, Ohio). Scale is 1 dm high. (b) Unusually large piece of wood found 103 ft (31.4 m) below surface in South Amherst Quarry No. 7 of Cleveland Quarries, Cleveland Museum of Natural History Paleobotany Department specimen P-1522. Scale is marked in 1 cm increments. (c) Concretion in edge of freshly quarried large block used for armour stone (2013 photo) (probably quarried in Birmingham). Scale is marked in 1 dm increments.

The most common (but still scarce) fossils found are of broken pieces of flattened and carbonized plant stems and plant debris, sometimes found along bedding surfaces. In the past (Orton 1893, p. 29) larger plant accumulations were known as ‘coal blossoms’. Rarely, larger (c. 10 cm long) pieces of wood are found (Fig. 8b). The plant Annularia and inarticulate brachiopods (Newberry 1873b, p. 210) have also been reported. Body fossils of animals are very rare, however. The most striking animal fossil found in the unit is the actinopterygian fossil fish Gonatodus brainerdi (Thomas 1853). Because of this Brainerd (1853, p. 19) called the Berea the ‘Fish stratum or “grindstone grit”’. (The term ‘Fish stratum’ did not continue in use, however.) At least 10 specimens of Gonatodus were found in quarries in Chagrin Falls, Berea, and Independence, and spines of ctenacanth sharks were reported as occurring within a pyritic layer of the sandstone (Newberry 1889, p. 125).

Iron banding (liesegang) can be found in the Berea, especially, but not only, in southern Ohio. The Kipton quarry in Lorain County has promoted Berea sandstone with iron banding for its decorative nature (Pfingsten 2019, inside front cover, fig. 3–10). In some cases it may be possible to use inclusions and other features for more detailed provenance (as in Hannibal 2006, pp. 41–42).

Technical properties

Berea sandstone is one of the most studied sandstones in the world, as it has become a standard for sandstone analysis by geologists, geophysicists, engineers, hydrologists and others (e.g. Guyer & Johnson 1999; Ulrich & Darling 2001). Berea sandstone cores have long been a standard for petroleum-related investigations, for example those of Menéndez et al. (1996) and Øren & Bakke (2003), and these and some other related studies have been cited several hundreds of times each. Numerous studies of faulting, porosity and fluid flow, core flooding, etc., have been done using Berea sandstone samples, especially cores. Hart & Wang (1995) have determined poroelastic moduli for the Berea and Su & Nimmo (2003) have investigated the effect of fractures on flow using Berea samples. Cores for such analyses have been an important commercial product (Cleveland Quarries website, https://www.clevelandquarries.com/).

Berea sandstone has been important for analysis of dimension-stone and engineering properties, and so has become a standard in these regards as well. Hale & Shakoor (2003) have investigated the effect of heating and cooling, wetting and drying, and freezing and thawing on the compressive strength of Berea sandstone. Barefield & Shakoor (2006) have examined the effect of water saturation on unconfined compressive strength.

Chemistry of the stone has been documented from several quarry locations (Bownocker 1915, pp. 74–75; Bowles 1917, p. 6; Van Horn 1931, p. 110; Table 1), but such chemical analyses, although useful, have declined in usage in recent decades. Physical properties, as reported by the Cleveland Quarries Company on their website, are listed in Table 2 using current ASTM methods for the two types of Berea sandstone currently sold. (These are the methods of ASTM International, formerly American Society for Testing and Materials. These methods are used in America and some other parts of the world.) Engineering properties are listed in Table 3. Additional technical data are given in Bownocker (1915, pp. 75–77) and Van Horn (1931, p. 110), and by the Cleveland Quarries Company (c. 1936). There have also been studies of rock burst occurrences in the quarries themselves (Niles 1876).

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Table 2.

Physical properties of Berea Sandstone

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Table 3.

Engineering properties of Berea sandstone

Suitability

Berea sandstone has been shown to be suitable as dimension stone as well as for use as grindstones. The stone has for the most part proved to be very durable when used as a building stone. It has been more durable than some other sandstones used as dimension stone, in particular some (but not all) of the once-popular brownstones (which varied in colour from browns to reds) quarried in North America. These include the once important, but no longer quarried, Proterozoic Jacobsville Sandstone. That stone, described by Rose et al. (2017), has been named a Global Heritage Stone Resource. It was popular in the eastern USA in the late nineteenth century, but has not held up nearly as well as the Berea. Spalling is a particular problem with the Jacobsville. Exterior maintenance of buildings made from the Jacobsville may include manually knocking off pieces that are loose (Hannibal & Schmidt 1992, p. 9). The Berea also holds up well in comparison with some Triassic stones quarried from the Newark Supergroup. These include Seneca sandstone, discussed by Grissom et al. (2018) in this volume. Hummelstown brownstone, a Triassic brownstone from the Hammer Creek Formation quarried from the Newark Supergroup in eastern North America, however, has held up as well, or better than, the Berea, at least in some cases.

Berea sandstone has held up well as a building stone because of its quartzose composition, its largely silica cement, its low carbonate content and its relatively large percentage of porosity. Berea sandstone has low sensitivity to freeze–thaw. This is, at least in part, due to its relatively high porosity: 14% in Hale & Shakoor (2003), and between 15 and 18% in Bownocker (1915, p. 77), but 19–26% in Churcher et al. (1991).

It is best, however, as with other sedimentary building stones, not to use it as cladding at the base of buildings where it will come into contact with the ground as salt-laden fluids can easily be wicked into the stone.

Vulnerability of supply and maintenance of supply

Many of the old quarries, including those at Berea, are now protected as parks, preserving the sites but presumably eliminating future quarrying, or are abandoned as stone quarries. In the past Berea sandstone has not always been available. When the Canadian Parliament Buildings in Ottawa were being repaired in the 1990s, availability of Berea sandstone was limited (Blades & Stewart 1990, p. 116) during a downturn in the industry locally.

Quarries in the Amherst area have seen their ups and downs over the years. Ownership has changed over time. In the 1990s a Canadian company purchased and ran the Amherst area quarries (Munno 1996). The large and deep quarries in the Amherst area of Lorain County are no longer active, and have been the sites of proposed development (Sangiacomo 2017), which presumably will prevent future quarrying.

The current Cleveland Quarries, under new management, continues to quarry dimension stone in Birmingham, Erie County. Owing to the extensive homogeneity of the Berea sandstone, this stone is generally similar to stone quarried in the Amherst area. The stone is also much like that historically quarried in the type area of the Berea Sandstone, even as far as having similar shallow ripplemarks (Fig. 8a). The use of the stone for restoration and rehabilitation of historical buildings has become economically important for Cleveland Quarries in recent decades. The stone is also quarried (as Ohio sandstone) to a lesser extent by Kipton Quarry Stone Products in Kipton, western Lorain County.

Historical use and geographical area of utilization

Berea sandstone has been extensively used in eastern and midwestern and parts of western North America. Early on, its use was international, with shipments to Canada in the 1830s. Records of the 1880 US Census (summarized in Hannibal et al. 2006, table 1), indicate that the principal markets for the stone at that time were in the eastern part of the USA between New York and Chicago, as well as Canada. The stone has been used for many monuments, buildings and other structures in the eastern and midwestern portions of North America. Grindstones made from Berea sandstone were shipped to localities beyond North America, as far as Russia, Japan and South America (Bownocker 1915, p. 116).

Besides grindstones, the stone was also used for scythe stones (Cleveland Stone Company, c. 1900) and for wellstones, usually round but sometimes square covers for outdoor water wells. Old grindstones and wellstones are common ornaments today in Ohio. A much more limited amount of Berea sandstone was used for millstones and hulling stones (Stout 1944, p. 79). The stone has also been used for breakwalls, shore armouring and terraces, and as ornamental blocks. Curbstones made from Berea were an important product in the first half of the twentieth century as were pavements. The stone was also used as refractory stone.

Berea sandstone was widely used for caps, lintels, stairs, doorframes, columns and trim parts of houses made from other types of stone (limestone and other siltstones), brick buildings, and even foundations and basements of houses made from wood. It was also used for gravestones (Bauer et al. 2002), the bases of gravestones for cemetery monuments made from a variety of stone types, and for cemetery monuments themselves, in Ohio. It was also used for cisterns, ash houses, chemical vats and foundry stone.

Berea sandstone was also utilized by Native Americans. The most spectacular use was for the Independence, Ohio, petroglyph, a remnant (about 1.2 × 2 m) of an expansive petroglyph (originally 3.7 × 17 m; Whittlesey 1871; Miller et al. 1979, p. 71; probably dating from between 1000 and 1650 CE; Larick & Hannibal 2012). It was discovered by quarrymen who found it buried in soil in 1845. This large section of Berea sandstone was saved by being built into one of the outer walls of the Independence Presbyterian Church, which were being made from Berea sandstone quarried nearby. Later, an addition was added to the church, resulting in the petroglyph becoming part of an interior wall, protected from weathering. This is one of the best-preserved petroglyphs in the midwestern USA. There are other possible petroglyphs as well (Cleveland Quarries Company c. 1931, p. 8).

Major historical buildings, monuments, and other structures made with Berea sandstone

A large number of historical structures have been built using Berea sandstone. The following list notes structures that are important because of their early construction date, and/or historical, political or religious significance. Dates of completion or dedication are given and inclusion on the US National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) or Canadian Register of Historic Places (CRHP) is noted. Berea sandstone was used for the exterior of structures unless otherwise indicated. Sources include Hawes (1884) and Hawes et al. (1884), Cleveland Stone Company (c. 1890) and Masten (1900), which list a large number of structures made with Berea sandstone, and other sources listed in the references at the end of this paper. Some references to particular structures made from Berea sandstone are noted below to document the usage.

Ohio

  • First Ohio Statehouse, Chillicothe, c. 1802 (stone quarried near Chillicothe; demolished);

  • Adena Mansion of Thomas Worthington, Chillicothe, 1807 (stone quarried at location; Wolfe 2004); designed by Benjamin Latrobe (NRHP, also a National Historic Landmark; Fig. 2a);

  • Ohio & Erie Canal locks and associated structures, Cleveland, Akron, Peninsula, and Waverly, beginning in the 1820s (various quarry locations; Hannibal 1998; NRHP);

  • Kirtland Temple of Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Kirtland, 1836 (stone from near Kirtland, trim visible but other stone mostly covered; NRHP);

  • St John's Historic Episcopal Church, Cleveland, 1838 (NRHP);

  • Bronson House, Peninsula, 1845 (stone from nearby quarry);

  • Henninger House, Parma, 1849 (the oldest extant building in Parma) (stone quarried at site) (NRHP; Fig. 9a);

  • Old Stone Church, Cleveland, 1854 (stone from Black River quarries in Grafton, Lorain County (NRHP; Fig. 9b);

  • Mahler Museum & History Center building, Berea, 1854 (stone from Berea);

  • Independence Presbyterian Church, Independence, 1855 (also includes the Independence petroglyph; stone from Independence; NRHP);

  • Lindsay-Crossman Chapel, Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, 1872 (part of a district that is on the NRHP);

  • Church of the Conversion of St Paul (formerly St Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church), Cleveland, 1875 (Buff Amherst sandstone);

  • Cleveland Superior Avenue Viaduct, Cleveland, 1878 (stone from Berea; viaduct partly obscured by adjacent development; NRHP);

  • Historic Courthouse, Elyria, 1878 (stone from Grafton quarries);

  • Amherst Town Hall, Amherst, 1884 (NRHP);

  • Peters Hall, Oberlin College, Oberlin, 1885 (stone from Amherst area; NRHP);

  • Old Post Office, Columbus, Ohio, 1887 (NRHP);

  • Garfield Monument, Cleveland, 1890 (a presidential monument; stone from Berea, Cleveland Stone Company, c. 1890; NRHP; Fig. 9c, d);

  • Wheeler Hall, Baldwin–Wallace University, Berea, 1893 (part of a district that is on the NRHP; Fig. 10a);

  • City Hall, Cincinnati, 1893 (stone from Amherst area; Hannibal & Davis 1992; NRHP);

  • Orton Hall, Ohio State University Campus, Columbus, 1893 (main and second floors are clad in stone from South Amherst; vestibule contains Beria sandstone from Iberia (Iberia sandstone), Waverly (Waverly banded sandstone), Grafton (Grafton sandstone) and Sunbury (Sunbury sandstone) (Melvin & McKenzie 1992, p. 25; NRHP);

  • Cuyahoga County Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument, Cleveland, 1894, buff Amherst stone (Gleason 1894, p. 613; Fig. 10b);

  • Rockefeller Park bridges, Cleveland, 1899–1900, designed by Charles Schweinfurth (NRHP);

  • St Bernard Church, Akron, 1905 (stone from Peninsula) (NRHP);

  • Summit County Court House, Akron, 1908 (NRHP);

  • Cleveland Museum of Art (foyer and rotunda walls and rectangular columns and pilasters, walls of the Armor Court, Gray Canyon Sandstone from the Amherst area, 1916; Anonymous 1924, p. 22; Cleveland Museum of Art 1928, p. 85);

  • Municipal Building, Akron, 1926 (Buckeye Gray sandstone from the Amherst area);

  • Fifth Church of Christ Scientist, Cleveland, c. 1927, demolished 2016 (Birmingham Warmtone Buff sandstone, Cleveland; Cleveland Quarries Company c. 1931);

  • Cleveland Board of Education Building (now a hotel), Cleveland (1930) (Silvertone Gray Amherst stone; Fig. 10c);

  • Guardians of Transportation (sandstone pylons on Lorain–Carnegie Bridge), Cleveland (1932) (Buckeye Gray sandstone from Amherst area quarries; Anonymous 1932, 1937b; Cleveland Quarries Company 1932; the bridge is on the NRHP; designed by Walker & Weeks; Fig. 2b);

  • Old Post Office Building, Cleveland (1934) (originally clad with Silvertone Gray Amherst sandstone).

Fig. 9.
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Fig. 9.

Buildings made from Berea sandstone: (a) Henninger House. Parma, with sign celebrating its preservation (2006 photo); (b) Old Stone Church, downtown Cleveland (2019 photo); (c) Garfield Monument, Cleveland (2008 photo); (d) close-up view of carved capitals of Garfield Monument during cleaning (2019 photo).

Fig. 10.
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Fig. 10.

Additional structures made with Berea sandstone: (a) Wheeler Hall, Baldwin Wallace University (2019 photo); (b) Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Cleveland (beige stone is Berea sandstone; grey is Quincy granite; statuary is bronze) (2008 photo); (c) Cleveland Board of Education Building detail (2008 photo).

Outside of Ohio

  • Canadian Parliament Buildings (trim), Ottawa, Ontario, 1859, and reconstruction in 2000 (CRHP) where it was used in part to replace Potsdam Sandstone (Lawrence 2001; Gall 2011);

  • Montreal Telegraph Building (also known as Canada's Four Corners Building, 1871, Montreal, Quebec; CRHB);

  • Bank of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, 1872 (sandstone from Berea);

  • Michigan State Capitol, Lansing, Michigan, 1879 ‘Buff Amherst stone’ (NRHP);

  • Carnegie Library and Natural History Museum Building, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1895, 1907 stone from Amherst area (Anonymous 1913; Kollar & Brezinski 2006) (NRHP);

  • Third St Joseph County Courthouse, South Bend, Indiana, 1897 (Silvertone Gray Amherst sandstone; NRHP);

  • Bay City Hall, Bay City, Michigan, 1897 (Amherst stone; NRHP);

  • Washington County Courthouse, Washington, Pennsylvania, 1900 (notable for its tall sandstone columns; NRHP);

  • Post Office building, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1908 (Gray ‘Canyon’ sandstone; Cleveland Stone Company 1910);

  • Alberta Legislative Building, Edmonton, Alberta, 1919 (tall columns of north entrance), McDermott quarry sandstone, Berea (Anonymous 1912; Burwash et al. 2002) (Alberta Register of Historic Places);

  • John Hancock Building (Berkeley Building), Boston, Massachusetts, 1926 (26 storeys high);

  • Buffalo City Hall, 1932 (a 32-floor building made from Silvertone Gray Amherst sandstone; NRHP).

Related heritage issues

Recognition of the importance of Berea sandstone

A number of cities, towns and park systems in Ohio have celebrated their Berea sandstone quarrying history. Two cities in northeastern Ohio, Berea and Amherst, have especially recognized this heritage (Figs 11 & 12). In the later 1800s, Berea had a newspaper named the Grindstone City Advertiser and today Berea calls itself the ‘grindstone capital of the world’. The city of Amherst has long called itself the ‘Sandstone center of the world,’ a slogan popularized by a local Amherst businessman in 1910 (Hieb 2007, p. 13). There is, indeed, a strong case for the claim of Berea being the premier source of grindstones, and it is certainly true that the extremely thick usable sandstone deposits in the Amherst area have been world class in size and production.

Fig. 11.
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Fig. 11.

Historical material in Berea, Ohio: (a) old grindstone used as a sign for the Mahler Museum & History Center, located in an 1854 building near Coe Lake (2018 photo); (b) marker at the site of the Big quarry, now Coe Lake, in Berea (2018 photo); (c) old curbstones stacked sideways along walkway in old quarry, now Coe Lake (2018 photo).

Fig. 12.
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Fig. 12.

Historical structures in Amherst, Ohio: (a) marker in front of Amherst City Hall which is also made from Berea sandstone (2019 photo); (b) part of Amherst Sandstone Village (2019 photo).

The Berea Historical Society's Mahler Museum & History Center is located in an 1850s building made from Berea sandstone with a grindstone marker (Fig. 11a). It is located just north of Coe Lake, the ‘Big quarry’ of Berea sandstone that had closed in 1936. There is an historical marker (Fig. 11b) near the lake. The Society contains a collection of materials related to this and other Berea quarries. This includes quarry-worker tools. Water level at Coe Lake is just above the level of the Berea, but some of the Berea can be seen as the water is clear and a pier built out into the south side of the lake is lined with curbstones (Fig. 11c), one of the major products from stone quarried in the city, and even for a while after the Berea was no longer quarried locally from stone brought from Amherst. Real or faux grindstones act as gateways and signposts in Berea. Images of grindstones appear on newer street signs. The Berea sesquicentennial medal (issued in 1986) featured a grindstone on its reverse, surrounded by the phrase ‘Berea, Ohio the grindstone city’ (Lindheim 1986).

Baldwin Wallace College, founded and named in part for John Baldwin, Sr, has recognized its long and complex relationship with the Berea quarries. The quarries supported Baldwin College at its beginning as the Baldwin Institute in the 1840s. Baldwin donated the land for the university. The early college properties were sold, however, to the Cleveland Quarries Company as they stood atop quarryable sandstone deposits. Money from the sale was used to purchase the land on which the present Baldwin Wallace University is located. Berea sandstone has continued to be used for structures on the campus, and historical Berea sandstone structures (Fig. 10a) have been maintained and updated. The City of Berea's Heritage Architectural Review Board has recently supported the use of Berea sandstone for cladding of a drugstore across from the historic Baldwin Wallace campus (Guevara 2004a, b).

Archival information related to the historical structures made from Berea sandstone can be found in the archives of Baldwin Wallace University. The papers of John Baldwin, Sr (MS 2015) at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland contain original contracts, deeds, leases and other documents related to the Berea quarries and Baldwin Wallace University. These include an 1867 contract (MS 2015, container 2, folder 7) between John Baldwin and his wife and the Trustees of Baldwin University giving ‘40 acres of rocks to the trustees … in trust for religious and educational use’.

Two historical markers stand in front of the Amherst City Hall (one of which is shown in Fig. 12a), declaring Amherst as the ‘sandstone center (or capital) of the world’. Also in the city of Amherst, the Amherst Historical Society has assembled a group of historical sandstone (and other) buildings as a living history centre, the Amherst Sandstone Village (Amherst Sandstone Museum Center; Fig. 12b), with a goal of preserving the area's sandstone quarrying heritage. It contains a number of sandstone buildings built as far back as the 1830s. Several buildings stand where they were built, but other buildings and structures have been moved there, some disassembled at another site and reassembled on the village grounds (Gilfether c. 2001). The museum preserves quarry-related objects and archival material related to quarrying in the Amherst area. Amherst students and others have also proposed sandstone as the state rock of Ohio (Kavanaugh 1999).

The Peninsula Library and Historical Society in Summit County contains material relevant to the quarrying of Berea sandstone in Peninsula, including quarries just to the east and SE of the library building itself, including Deep Lock Quarry. These include a Log Book for South Quarry and scrapbooks of photographs. The Library and Historical Society also periodically mounts exhibits related to local sandstone quarrying at the nearby Cuyahoga Valley Historical Museum in Peninsula. The Crestline Historical Society, Crestline, Ohio, also contains documents related to quarrying of the Berea sandstone in the Leesville area. The Archives of the Ohio History Center have some information on the Worthington Mansion quarry. Many additional institutions and individuals with photographs or other information on Berea sandstone quarries and operations in northern and central Ohio can be found listed in the acknowledgements of Pfingsten (2019, p. ii).

Preservation of historical buildings

Many buildings made from Berea sandstone have been demolished, in part after fires. These include city halls, courthouses, houses of worship and large mansions. Local residents tried to save the 1884 Seneca County courthouse in Tiffin, Ohio, between 2004 and its demolition in 2011–12, with no success. More recently, the c. 1927 Fifth Church of Christ Scientist in Cleveland, clad with delicately patterned (ripple-marked) Berea sandstone, was torn down in 2016–17, despite an even longer period of efforts by preservationists to save the building (Jarboe 2016). Once-extensive amounts of pavement and curbstone made from Berea sandstone have been fast disappearing in recent decades, replaced mainly by concrete. In recent years community groups and individuals have mobilized to save historical structures made from Berea sandstone. When the Henninger House (Fig. 9a), the oldest existing house in Parma, was threatened by development, it was saved through the efforts of a community group, now the West Creek Conservancy. This house, located near and just above the quarry that supplied its stone, was fortunate that it could be saved in situ on the hill above the quarry. Individuals have also saved buildings made from Berea sandstone by moving them, either all at once, or by disassembling them and reassembling them at another site. The West Creek Conservancy and others have also assembled historical information on the Berea sandstone used for the Henninger House.

Cleaning

Cleaning of structures made from Berea sandstone can be problematical. Many structures have been sandblasted in the past, e.g. the Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument in Cleveland, removing a thin but substantial exterior layer of stone and thus reducing the sculptural details on the surface. This very harsh technique is still used today for historical buildings and bridge structures, but not usually for major structures. Walnut hulls were also once in vogue as stone abrasives (Chambers & Chambers 1983; Wayne 1983; Ashurst & Dimes 1990) as they were thought to be less harmful. (Interestingly both sand and walnut hulls have been used in the petroleum industry to open pores in subsurface sandstones; it seems likely that they would have the same effect on building sandstones.)

In more recent years other techniques that have been presumed to be less harmful have been used. These have included use of dilute hydrofluoric acid (Ashurst & Dimes 1990, pp. 130–132) and other chemical treatments (Gangewere (1990) gives a general account; and Piscitello (1998) a more accurate account of such cleaning). Care is needed as some techniques (especially application of acids) have resulted in the stone taking on an orange coloration, possibly owing to the effect of acids on hydrated iron oxides. Water, a generally more gentle technique, has been used more recently (Mack & Grimmer 1975), but this has generally been done with added materials, usually proprietary ones.

In Cleveland, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument (Fig. 10b) in downtown Cleveland was cleaned with sandblasting in 1966 and 1979 (Barrett 1981); the Guardians of Transportation (Fig. 2b) were cleaned using dilute hydrofluoric acid and walnut hulls during the period 1981–83 (Wayne 1983); the Old Stone Church in downtown Cleveland (Fig. 9b) was cleaned with proprietary solutions of dilute hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids in 1996–97; and the Garfield Monument (Fig. 9c, d) was cleaned using water and proprietary cleaning agents in 2019. As one would expect, the surface layer of the stone of the Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument has been most degraded, and all of the original sculptural items muted. Although the cleaning of the Guardians was well documented for its time, the cleaning of the other structures has not been, or remains to be, adequately documented in a publicly available form.

Berea quarries and structures in Cuyahoga Valley National Park

The Cuyahoga Valley National Park, located in northern Ohio, contains a number of Berea sandstone outcrops and quarries as well as a variety of structures made with Berea sandstone. The most prominent of the quarries is Deep Lock Quarry, a Summit County Metro Park located within the national park boundaries. The quarry is located high above the level of the Cuyahoga River here, and so a number of quarry levels can be seen as the most accessible area is above the groundwater table and so is not water-filled (Hannibal 1998, fig. 18). Incomplete millstones (also called hulling stones) made from the sandstone quarried here, and other quarry remnants, as well as a large canal lock partly composed of Berea sandstone can be seen near the quarry along the park trails. Other structures in the National Park made with Berea sandstone include a very well-preserved canal lock with masons' marks, canal aqueduct abutments and parts of other locks, buildings and foundations.

Other former quarries preserved in parks

Many county and local parks in northern Ohio contain old Berea sandstone quarries. These quarries in Berea, preserved in great part in the Cleveland Metroparks Mill Stream Run Reservation, are mostly water filled. These include Coe Lake, the ‘Big quarry’ of Berea Sandstone that had closed in 1936, and Wallace Lake, both part of a park complex begun in 1938 (Anonymous 1938) and part of the Cleveland Metropolitan Park System. Part of Wallace Lake is used seasonally for swimming. The Amherst quarries, although no longer used for quarrying, are not publicly accessible. North Olmsted, located just to the west of Berea, has many Berea sandstone-related features, including grindstones and remnants of old quarries and quarry stone that can be seen along trails. There are other quarries in Ohio metropolitan parks, and local and city parks, including Bradley Woods Reservation of the Cleveland Metropolitan Park system. The small Mormon Temple quarry in the Chapin Forest Reservation of the Lake County Metroparks is important as it was presumably used for the nearby temple. Quarrying in some of the local parks has been well documented. This includes quarrying in the Indian Hollow Reservation of the Lorain County Metroparks, particularly well documented by Smith & Justy (2011). The Friends of the Crawford County Park District have also published a history of the quarries in Leesville (Batory 2014).

While not located in public parks, some privately owned quarries are now, or have been, used for swimming. These include the old Bronson quarry in Peninsula, Summit County and Wildwood Lake in northern Lorain County.

Weathering

Honeycomb weathering (also known as tafoni and, in Europe, as alveolar weathering) develops upon occasion in buildings made from Berea sandstone (Winkler 1997, fig. 6.36), and the protected backs of columns sometimes exhibit degradation, as in some of the columns of the Garfield Monument in Cleveland. Preferential weathering-related degradation is also apparent in blocks of Berea sandstone in some older buildings in which blocks were placed on edge rather than parallel to bedding. As with many other types of porous sedimentary rock, sandstone used at the base of buildings allows salt-laden water to be wicked up into the stone.

Other uses

Berea sandstone is the longest producer of oil and gas in Ohio. The first Berea field, the Meccca Field, was developed in 1860, where the Berea was extremely shallow, only 15 m (50 ft) or less below the surface (Orton 1888b, pp. 328–329). Other fields have followed, and many Berea wells are still in operation today. The unit also produces petroleum in the subsurface of adjacent states. Berea has also been an important source of groundwater both in northeastern Ohio (Van Horn 1931, p. 130; Winslow et al. 1953, pp. 47–51; Rau 1969) and in other areas of the state (Stout et al. 1943). An old Berea spring still produces water from behind Amherst City Hall (but is no longer safe to drink from). The city of Berea has also obtained water directly from abandoned quarries.

Related dimension stones

A number of other Paleozoic sandstones are, or have been, utilized for building stone in Ohio. The principal stones have been the Devonian Euclid bluestone, the Mississippian Buena Vista sandstone and the Pennsylvanian Massillon sandstone (Fig. 5). Details of the Euclid bluestone can be found in Hannibal et al. (2007), the Buena Vista in Saja & Hannibal (2017) and Massillon in Schmidley (1987).

Euclid bluestone is finer grained than the Berea sandstone, as found in the classic northern Ohio quarries. The Euclid is a very fine-grained sandstone, more dolomitic and micaceous than the Berea. Euclid bluestone also contains more pyrite than the Berea and, because of this, has not been used much for cladding of buildings, although it was used extensively for pavement stone (Hannibal et al. 2007), as was the Berea.

Buena Vista stone is a coarse siltstone, which contains distinctive trace fossils, such as Zoophycos, that are not found in the Berea (Hannibal 1995; Saja & Hannibal 2017). One of the best-known Buena Vista quarries is at McDermott, Ohio, and so is called the McDermott quarry, which is not to be confused with the historical Berea sandstone quarry also named the McDermott quarry in Berea. The stone was once extensively quarried in southern Ohio but its use in recent years has been limited.

Massillon is coarser grained (typically coarse) than the Berea and comes in more coloured varieties. It also has a long quarrying history, beginning in the 1850s, and continues to be quarried. Although a fine building stone, historically it has not been used as extensively as the Berea. When Berea sandstone quarries were closed for a time in the past, the Massillon was used as a substitute for the Berea. Production of the Massillon has exceeded the Berea in a number of recent years (Wright & Stucker 2018, table 15). Although production of the Berea has been less than that of the Massillon recently, the technical properties of the Berea compare favourably with those of the Massillon in terms of compressive strength and modulus of rupture.

In northern Ohio the Pennsylvanian Sharon sandstone/conglomerate was also used as a building stone in the 1800s, but that stone can usually be distinguished because the Sharon is typically coarser grained and has pebbles (Foos 2003). The fame of the Berea was such that it eclipsed that of the Sharon (Hannibal & Saja 2006), so much so that buildings made from the Sharon have been misidentified as being made from the Berea. The Sharon can be distinguished from the Berea as the Sharon used for building typically has some pebbles in it, but care needs to be taken as the overall grain size of the Sharon ranges from fine to coarse.

Principal literature

Geological reports on Berea sandstone

The most important geological reports that describe Berea as a building and dimension stone are the report of Hawes (1884) for the 1880 census (which was published both in the Census report and by the Ohio Geological Survey), and the classical Ohio Geological Survey report of Bownocker on Ohio building stone (1915). The latter has more space (pp. 72–118) devoted to Berea sandstone than any other stone, reflecting its importance. The Ohio Geological Survey has also reported production statistics in its Report on Ohio Mineral Industries (e.g. Stucker 2017; Wright & Stucker 2018) over many decades. Reports that include information on the geology and to some extent economic uses and aspects of quarrying of the stone include those of Newberry (1873a, b, 1874a), Prosser (1912), Burroughs (1913) and Cushing et al. (1931). The monumental (but now in part outdated) study of Pepper et al. (1954) and the study of Potter et al. (1983) contain many measured sections and maps. More recent geological works include those of Herdendorf (1966), Pashin & Ettensohn (1995), Hannibal et al. (2006) and Baird et al. (2013, 2014, 2018).

Guidebooks and catalogues

Berea sandstone (under the names Berea sandstone or Ohio sandstone) has been noted in a number of geological guides to building stone, including guides to Akron (Hannibal 2006), Cincinnati (Hannibal & Davis 1992), Cleveland (Hannibal & Schmidt 1992) and Columbus (Melvin & McKenzie 1992) in Ohio, and Ottawa (Gall 2011) and Toronto (Fouts et al. 1991) in Canada, as well as a guidebook to the historical Ohio canals (Hannibal 1998). Camp (2006b) has also discussed the Berea at various sites, including quarries, in his Roadside Geology of Ohio.

In his catalogue of stone in the collection of the US National Museum, Merrill (1889, pp. 579–580, as sub-Carboniferous) listed more than 30 specimens of Berea sandstone (under various names and as various kinds of samples, although some other stones are listed under sub-Carboniferous too). The National Institute of Standards and Technology test wall, once located in Washington, DC and now located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, includes many Berea sandstone samples derived from Merrill's collection (which was thus reduced). These include 17 specimens of Amherst stone and seven of stone from Berea. The wall was initially documented by Kessler & Anderson (1951). Photos of the specimens in the wall, and additional information, are on the NIST website: https://www.nist.gov/el/materials-and-structural-systems-division-73100/nist-stone-wall. (In using this website the Berea is noted as Mississippian.)

Historical and popular works

A number of historical and popular books, or chapters in such works, provide details, illustrations and/or photographs documenting quarrying in regions of Ohio. These include late 1800s county histories, some of which include chapters by geologists. More recent local histories, often drawing from these earlier histories but frequently with additional information, include Holzworth's (1970) Men of Grit and Greatness, which describes the Berea area quarries, and Mote (2004) which brings together many historical photographs of or relating to the Berea quarries. Paschen's Quarry Town (2000), Sego's Then There Were None (1996), Hieb's (2007) Sandstone Center of the World and DeBlasio & Pallante's Amherst (2010) describe and illustrate aspects of quarrying in the Amherst area. Miller et al.'s (1979) The Story of Independence includes chapters describing quarrying activities in that city. Batory's (2014) History and Geology of the Leesville, Ohio Stone Quarries provides details on Leesville quarries in Crawford County. Smith & Justy's (2011) Lost Quarry Industry of Indian Hollow and Willow Park, which describes quarrying in Grafton, stands out among these for its thoroughness. Pfingsten's recent (2019) Berea Sandstone Quarries of Ohio stands out for its extensive coverage of quarries in northern Ohio and central Ohio as far south as Franklin County, including a great number of historical photos.

Conclusion

Based on its widespread use in North America as a dimension stone, beginning around 1800 and continuing today, and its use for grindstones that were exported beyond North America to other continents, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Berea sandstone is one of the most, or even the most, widely used historical sandstones quarried in North America. This, and the number of important structures made at least in part from the stone listed on American and Canadian Historic Registers, recommend its nomination as a Global Heritage Stone Resource.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the following who have provided information or material for this study: Louise Allen and others at The Berea Historical Society; Gordon Baird, SUNY Fredonia; Chris Smith, Grafton; Ralph Pfingston, Cleveland; J. D. Stucker, Ohio Geological Survey; Peter Buettner, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives, and the Paleobotany and Paleoecology Department of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH). The Berea Historical Society and the Ohio Division of Geological Survey gave permission to use photos and Cleveland Quarries gave permission to publish technical data from their website. Lee Hall (CMNH) designed Figure 1. This paper was improved by the proofreading of Anne Sanford and Kathleen Farago and by the comments of Stucker and an anonymous reviewer.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author contributions

JTH: conceptualization (lead), data curation (lead), formal analysis (lead), funding acquisition (lead), investigation (lead), methodology (lead), project administration (lead), resources (lead), software (lead), supervision (lead), validation (lead), visualization (lead), writing – original draft (lead), writing – review & editing (lead).

  • © 2020 The Author(s). Published by The Geological Society of London. All rights reserved

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Berea sandstone: A heritage stone of international significance from Ohio, USA

Joseph T. Hannibal
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 486, 27 January 2020, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP486-2019-33
Joseph T. Hannibal
Cleveland Museum of Natural History1 Wade Oval Drive, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
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Berea sandstone: A heritage stone of international significance from Ohio, USA

Joseph T. Hannibal
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 486, 27 January 2020, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP486-2019-33
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introductory history of quarrying and uses of Berea sandstone
    • Global Heritage Stone Resource elements
    • Major historical buildings, monuments, and other structures made with Berea sandstone
    • Conclusion
    • Acknowledgements
    • Funding
    • Author contributions
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