Other Random People

Photographer: Ray Boren 

Summary Author: Ray Boren 

A creamy-white oolite limestone quarried in Utah's rural, mountain-fringed Sanpete Valley has been a versatile masonry resource for houses, public buildings, churches, out-buildings and even a few neoclassical châteaux since pioneer settlers discovered the sedimentary rock in the mid-19th century, as illustrated in this montage, featuring such structures in central and northern Utah. The prized stone also made its way farther afield, for it gleams as the facing of William Randolph Hearst's Castle in San Simeon, California, and a single carved block was sent in the 1850s from Utah Territory to be included in the towering Washington Monument memorial obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The Green River Formation limestone — described as an oolite, oolith, or oolitic, all from the Greek oon- for egg and -litho for stone — is composed of tiny, not-quite-spherical grains, each of which formed from accumulated layers of magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate cemented around a minuscule core fragment in agitated water. The prehistoric setting in this case was a large body of water that geologists call Lake Uinta, which covered part of this region of North America during the Eocene, about 43-46 million years ago, according to Utah Historical Quarterly.

Stonecutters and masons among early Mormon immigrant settlers in the 19th century, many of them from Scandinavia, found Sanpete oolite limestone relatively simple to quarry, prepare, carve, and dress. And it is beautiful, too, as the pictured examples demonstrate.

The buildings include, from the top of the montage down, and left to right:

— Utah's historic Governor's Mansion in Salt Lake City, a chateau-esque residence originally built in 1902 for mining magnate and U.S. Senator Thomas Kearns and his wife Jennie Kearns, and donated to the state by the family in 1937.

— The 19th-century Ephraim Co-op building, in Ephraim, Utah, has served since the 1870s variously as a cooperative store, a school, a social hall, and as part of a roller mill. It is now a craft and gift shop.

— A close-up of chiseled and shaped stone blocks on the south side of the Ephraim Co-op.

— The Orson and Mary Ann Hyde residence, built in the 1860s in Spring City, Utah. The house, along with the rest of the well-preserved pioneer village, has been part of the Spring City National Historic District since 1980.

— The John R. Park Building, University of Utah's administrative center, was completed in 1914, faced with oolitic limestone from Sanpete Valley.

— The Sanpete County Courthouse in Manti, Utah, was built in 1935 of oolite, in a neoclassical/art deco architectural style called PWA moderne, with the acronym representing the U.S. government's Public Works Administration of the era.

— The striking Manti Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, built between 1877 and 1888, utilized oolite limestone quarried from the same hill upon which the historic building sits.

— The Spring City Chapel meetinghouse, constructed between 1898 and 1914, was built in a Gothic Revival/Romanesque-influenced architectural style using limestone quarried to the south of the town. It is the handsome Main Street centerpiece of the Spring City National Historic District.

Sanpete Valley, Utah Coordinates: 39.2339, -111.6813

Related Links:

The Huntington Mammoth

The Pyramids of Ancient Egypt and the Great Sphinx

Utah Geological Survey Popular Geology - Old Hansen Planetarium/Old Salt Lake City Public Library