Near Zion National Park, Utah
Roosevelt Arch, Yellowstone Park
The Roosevelt Arch, at the north entrance to Yellowstone Park, was built in 1904 with TR himself laying the cornerstone. The arch is built from basalt column segments quarried somewhere in the park. Notice that the corners and arches were chiseled rectangular while...
Reclaimed Sandstone Project in Wyoming
In late 2021, we started reclaiming the stone from this old barn in central Montana. The sandstone was used on a new Jackson, WY residence. The stonework on the old barn had almost completely collapsed. The new residence, designed by Annex Architecture, is just being...
Sandstone Chapel at Mammoth in Yellowstone Park
This stone chapel was built in 1913, when the US Army managed Yellowstone from a fort in Mammoth. This sandstone was quarried by Scottish stonemasons from very nearby, between Mammoth and the Gardiner River. I haven't seen the actual quarry yet. Nearly all of the...
Cutting out a rustic hearth
This hearth was cut from a weathered and lichen-covered sandstone boulder from central Montana. Both the back and the base of the boulder were sawn off. Then the back of the boulder was notched to fit around the firebox. Looked pretty good when we...
Basalt From an Old Railroad Ballast Quarry
We're producing basalt wall stone from an old Northern Pacific ballast quarry about 30 miles north of Yellowstone Park in Paradise Valley. The basalt flow that has been quarried here is called the Hepburn Mesa Basalt. It erupted about 2.2 million years ago and flowed...
Stanley Brook Bridge, Acadia National Park, Maine
Each of the seventeen granite bridges in Acadia National Park is a different masonry style. Stanley Brook Bridge (1933) is a random ashlar with projecting voussoirs and jumpers and a few beach cobbles mixed in. All the bridges were built from Cadillac Mountain Granite...
Diabase Dikes on the Schoodic Peninsula, Maine
On the Schoodic Peninsula in Maine, diabase dikes intruded an older granite. Diabase is the equivalent of basalt that solidified underground. The diabase intruded upward from the mantle into fractures in the overlying granite. This occurred 195 million years ago and...
Reclaiming An Old Stone Barn
In late 2021, we started reclaiming the stone from this old barn in central Montana. The walls had collapsed in many places. The stonemasons that built this barn in the late 19th century collected the sandstone from the surrounding ranch. This sandstone is from the...
Yellowstone’s Rhyolite Walls
Most of the retaining walls in Yellowstone were built using boulders from the rhyolite flows around the central plateau. Click images to enlarge The rhyolite was used because it was available close by and was relatively workable with hand tools. Most walls have this...
Frontier Sandstone Quarry
Quarrying Frontier Sandstone requires the operator to peel out delicate layers without breaking too many.
1890’s Montana Stone Mansion
This beautiful sandstone building was built in White Sulfur Springs, MT in 1892 for Byron Rogers Sherman, a successful local rancher and businessman. Click images to enlarge Sherman was described as a man whose "wide-spread involvement in the economic development of...
The Granite at Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument
Harney Peak Granite1.7 billion years ago and many kilometers underground, the Harney Peak Granite intruded into an older mica schist. This granite is now exposed in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Click images to enlarge The same Harney Peak Granite is being sculpted...
Rebuilding Sperry Chalet
2017 Wildfire Burns Sperry Chalet Sperry Chalet was built in Glacier National Park in 1914 by the Great Northern Railway. Six miles from the nearest trailhead, Sperry Chalet welcomed guests for more than 100 years before a September 2017 wildfire destroyed the wooden...
Parkitecture in Northwest Montana
A Project Inspired by Sperry Chalet Sperry Chalet was built in Glacier National Park in 1914 by the Great Northern Railway. It is one of several backcountry lodges built by the railroad as a way to increase passenger traffic . The stone used to construct the Sperry...
Saving the Creamery
Homestead-era stone buildingThe "Creamery" was built in the 1880's by European immigrants who settled in Montana during late 19th century. Milk collected from surrounding homesteads was processed and sold to residents of Great Falls, ten miles to the north. A nearby...
Enigmatic Hovenweep
On a windswept canyon rim in far southeastern Utah stand the remains of some of the most baffling stone structures in North America. Ancestral Puebloans The Anasazi (now more properly called Ancestral Puebloan) populated the Four Corners area of the southwestern US...
Dry Stone Masonry at Jenny Lake
Grand Teton National Park Jenny Lake is the premier front country destination in Grand Teton National Park, used by most of the park's nearly five million annual visitors. Trails and overlooks around Jenny Lake provide some of the park's most spectacular vistas. From...
Tucson Gem and Mineral Show
Once a year for three weeks in January and February the entire world of mineral, fossil, and semi-precious stone quarriers and suppliers converge on Tucson, Arizona. Hundreds of vendors selling Moroccan marine fossils, Malagasy petrified wood, Chinese crystals, and...
The Largest Stones Ever Quarried
Megalithic stonework After spending half a lifetime as a Marine, a mountaineering instructor, and a prolific Jackson, WY architect, Vince Lee turned his attention toward analyzing and documenting the mind-blowing achievements of ancient...
The Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a region of beautiful stone villages scattered among undulating limestone hills about 100 kilometers west of London. Appearing much as they did hundreds of years ago, the stone villages of the Cotswolds provide a unique view of 17th- and 18th-century...
Medieval castle in France
Guedelon Castle is being built near Treigny, France using only traditional masonry methods. Construction started in 1997.
Fish Rock Tower
An Irish Round Tower in Northern California Rare Opportunity Few stonemasons get the opportunity to build structural stone buildings. Fewer still get to work on a round tower in the medieval Irish tradition. On the coast of northern California, members of the...
The Roman Wall Around Ancient London
Although Julius Caesar first invaded Britain in 55 BC, it wasn't until 43 AD, under Emperor Claudius, that Romans began occupying present-day England. They stayed for nearly four centuries. One Roman settlement was along the swampy northern shoreline of the tidal...
Flatwillow Fieldstone
The high prairie north of the Little Belt Mountains in central Montana seems like an endless stretch of flat-topped benches separated by deep ravines called "coulees." This is where we quarry Flatwillow Fieldstone, a Cretaceous sandstone eroded from the then-rising...
Travels in Tuscany
Tuscany has some of the most beautiful stone buildings in the world. The stone buildings in Tuscany were constructed over many centuries with many different kinds of stone, often with stone reclaimed from previous structures. Although there is no single Tuscan style...
Fall Trip to the Frontier Quarry
Crazy Mountains This October was perhaps the most beautiful month I have seen in Montana since I moved here in 1977. The Frontier Sandstone quarry is located about a two-hour drive northeast of Bozeman, and fortunately I drive there about once per week. It is one of...
Stone wandering in Ireland
Ireland has fabulous examples of stone masonry spanning many centuries. These few images only scratch the surface of what is there. The famous Rock of Cashel, shown above, is a group of 12th and 13th century structures in County Tipperary.
Mr. Rockefeller’s Bridges
Granite Bridges and Carriage Roads, Acadia National Park, Maine, USA John D. Rockefeller Jr. (right), the only son of the famous founder of Standard Oil, was a celebrated American philanthropist in the early 20th century. Between 1913 and 1940, Rockefeller financed...
Cutting Frontier Cap
Frontier Sandstone wall cap is installed with both the top surface and edge(s) exposed. To look attractive, the cap thickness must be consistent through the length of the wall. This is more difficult with natural-cleft stone like Frontier where the slab thickness is...
The Stone Foundation
The Stone Foundation is an eclectic collection of stone masons, stone carvers, architects, archaeologists, and assorted others who share a common passion for stone, stone work, and stone history. In addition to annual symposia and workshops, the Stone Foundation...
Pennsylvania Fieldstone Buildings
The eastern U.S., particularly southeastern Pennsylvania, has a lot of attractive 18th- and 19th-century farm houses and mills built from stone. Unlike that shown above, most of the stone used in these houses is irregular fieldstone. Although there may be others, I...
Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) Ruins
The Anasazi, now more properly called Ancestral Puebloans, were a mysterious culture of Native Americans that lived in what is now the southwestern U.S. from the 8th to the 13th century. They built extensive stone “villages” at many locations including Mesa Verde in...
Limestones Up Close
A close-up view of some of our favorite limestones Limestones are interesting when viewed through a simple 10-power hand lens because they commonly contain fossil fragments. The photos shown below were shot with good lighting and a macro camera lens; however, a...
Rockfall Destroys Italian House
An incredible video showing the destruction caused by a rockfall in Italy on January 21, 2014.
Carrara, Marble Capital of the Ancient and Modern World
Few places in the world are as rich in stone history as Carrara in northern Tuscany, Italy. Located where the Apuan Alps meet the Ligurian Sea, Carrara combines enormous marble deposits with nearby access to shipping on the Mediterranean. This...
Sandstones Up Close
You can tell a lot about a masonry stone by looking at it through a magnifying glass. A simple 10- or 15-power hand lens particularly reveals a lot with sandstones. The photos shown below were shot with good lighting and a macro camera lens; however, a similar view,...
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
Ceremonial Center of the Anasazi World The Anasazi From the 9th through 12th centuries, the enigmatic Anasazi people of the American southwest built the twelve "Great Houses" of Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico. Sandstone blocks, quarried from the surrounding...
Sagrada Familia
The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família ( Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family) is a Catholic Church in Barcelona, Spain designed by Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). Construction began in 1882 and continues today with an estimated completion date...
Cortona Limestone
One of our favorite stones, particularly for Mediterranean-style architecture, is Cortona Limestone. This buff- and gold-colored limestone re-creates the appearance of limestones quarried for centuries in Italy and France. In addition to having a beautiful color...
The Biltmore Estate
A Guilded-Age Mansion Built from Indiana Limestone At the height of the Gilded Age in 1889, 26-year-old George Washington Vanderbilt II (shown at right), grandson of the railroad and steamship magnate Cornelius "the Commodore" Vanderbilt, began construction on what...
Quarrying Frontier Flagstone
The Frontier Flagstone is quarried in the rolling plains of central Montana, near the town of Harlowton. All stone quarries differ depending on the type of stone and the nature of the deposit, and the Frontier has some unique characteristics. We customers visit the...
Quoins
Quoins are large rectangular stones used as cornerstones in traditional stone buildings. They provide structural support for buildings, particularly where rubble or fieldstone is used for the rest of the stonework. They also became an important aesthetic element in...
Join the Stone Foundation
The Stone Foundation is my favorite “stone group” , really the only stone group to which I belong. Starting with a stonemasonry workshop in Santa Fe in 1986, the Stone Foundation has evolved into an eclectic international collection of stone masons, stone carvers, dry...
What Makes Red Sandstone Red?
Red sandstones have been quarried as building stones for centuries on all continents except Antarctica. An example in the U.S. is the Smithsonian Castle (left), in Washington D.C., which was constructed from “Seneca Red” sandstone. In the mid-19th century, this...
Indiana Limestone Close Up
I could never photograph stone up close and get a good result. Even with a macro lenses and good lighting, I couldn’t get the sharpness and depth of field that I wanted. Fortunately, there are much better photographer than me and I recently gave a set of stone samples...
Select Stone Newsletter – Frontier Cap
Frontier® Sandstone Sill/Cap One of the advantages of quarrying stone that comes out in natural slabs is that you can make wall cap and windowsill. The Frontier Sandstone lends itself to making attractive and economical cap and sill Producing Cap and Sill The...
Montana’s Homestead-Era Stone Buildings
Scattered across the plains of central Montana are the remnants of countless homestead-era stone buildings built in the late-19th and early-20th centuries by long-forgotten European immigrants. Some are mostly standing while others are little more than the...
Reclaimed Cobblestones
From the original Roman roads to the natural cobblestone streets of Charleston, South Carolina, rounded cobblestones have been used to pave streets for millenia. Originally, the term "cobblestone" referred to rounded natural stone used to pave streets in Europe and...
Porphyry – Imperial Stone of the Roman Empire
The Romans discovered their most treasured stone in the desert of eastern Egypt.
Lord Elgin and the Parthenon Marbles
Why are marble sculptures from the Parthenon in the British Museum in London? Will the British ever return them?