The Euclid Bluestone of Northeastern Ohio: Quarrying History, Petrology, and Sedimentology Joseph T
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70 INDIANA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OCCASIONAL PA P ER 67 The Euclid Bluestone of Northeastern Ohio: Quarrying History, Petrology, and Sedimentology Joseph T. Hannibal, Benjamin A. Scherzer, and David B. Saja The Cleveland Museum of Natural History Abstract Ohio. Euclid bluestone was also crushed for use as a com- ponent of concrete, but recently it has been used mainly for Euclid bluestone (the Euclid Member of the Upper De- riprap along the Lake Erie shore and along stream banks, and vonian Bedford Formation) is a dense, well-indurated, very as decorative landscape stone. fine grained sandstone that crops out in northeastern Ohio This paper provides a comprehensive review of the in and near Cleveland. The unit was quarried early in the quarrying history of the Euclid bluestone, documents the nineteenth century, even earlier than documented quarry- last producing quarry, and comments on the petrology and ing of the more famous bluestones of New York State. Eu- sedimentology of the unit on the basis of samples from this clid bluestone was most famous for its use as flagstone for quarry. Brief comparisons also are made to the classic blue- sidewalks. It was used extensively in the Cleveland area, and stones of New York and Pennsylvania. In this paper, the ini- was shipped outside of northeastern Ohio to towns and cit- tial letters of both parts of the name of formal rock units, for ies between Milwaukee and New York and southward as far instance, “Berea Sandstone,” are capitalized, but only the first as Washington, D.C. Most Euclid bluestone quarries were part of informal rock units, for instance, “Euclid bluestone,” closed in the first decades of the twentieth century because are capitalized. of the lessening demand for sidewalk stone. Only one quarry, located on the eastern edge of the Cuyahoga Valley in south- What is the Euclid Bluestone? ern Cuyahoga County, has produced stone in recent decades. The Euclid bluestone is a very fine grained sandstone The stone quarried there has been broken to produce blocks that crops out on the east side of Cleveland, and in areas east suitable for riprap and landscaping. The Euclid at this quarry and south of Cleveland, and is mainly exposed east of the is quartz-rich, with minor albite (±microcline), muscovite, Cuyahoga River. The Euclid crops out in several Cleveland chlorite (±biotite), and accessory minerals (zircon, apatite, area parks, including the Euclid Creek and Brecksville reser- and magnetite), all enclosed in a ferroan-dolomite matrix. vations of the Cleveland Metroparks, and along Doan Brook Euclid bluestone is a distal Catskill wedge deposit composed at the Cleveland/Cleveland Heights border. The lip of one of finer material than that of the more proximal New York of the largest waterfalls in Cuyahoga County, on Mill Creek and Pennsylvania bluestones. in southeast Cleveland, is composed of the Euclid bluestone. Introduction Prosser (in Morse and Foerste, 1909, p. 166; see also Prosser, 1912, p. 373) formally named the Euclid bluestone for Eu- Euclid bluestone is a very fine grained sandstone that clid Creek, where the unit is 26.25 ft (8 m) thick, and was has been quarried in northeastern Ohio for most of the last long quarried. two centuries. It is considered to be an informal unit by the The word “bluestone” refers to its reputed color. Mat- Ohio Geological Survey. The Euclid is the densest of the ma- thew Read (1879, p. 215), an early Ohio Geological Survey jor northeastern Ohio sandstones; it was known for its com- geologist, called it a blue quarry-rock. John Strong Newberry pact nature and strength (Bownocker, 1915, p. 69–70; Van (1873, p. 188), Ohio’s most prominent nineteenth-century Horn, 1931, p. 107–111). Euclid bluestone was especially geologist, noted that it was the “blue stone” of the Cleveland recommended for use as flagstone. The Euclid historically has market. George Merrill (1891, p. 278), the great nineteenth- been used for elegant sandstone sidewalks that once graced century building stone expert, called it a “deep blue-gray most of the streets of Cleveland and other northeastern Ohio color.” Prosser (1912, p. 367) described it as a bluish-gray cities (Hannibal and Palermo, 1980). Sidewalks in other cit- sandstone at its type locality, and Bownocker (1915, p. 68) ies and towns in the region between New York and Chicago called it a blue sandstone. However, only one of the samples were also paved with Euclid bluestone flagging (Bownocker, noted by Van Horn (1931, p. 108) was light bluish gray; an- 1915, p. 70). In addition, the Euclid bluestone was used for other was light yellow. The rock’s name is perhaps more col- exterior steps, foundations for homes and other structures, orful than the rock itself, as the stone has a bluish cast only tombstones, windowsills, capstones and other cut-stone when it is freshly exposed. To complicate things, the term building trim, fences, laundry tubs, and even billiard tables, “bluestone” has long been used for types of rock other than as well as for aggregate and crushed stone (Bownocker, 1915, sandstone. “Sandusky blue stone,” for example, is a limestone p. 70; Van Horn, 1931, p. 107–111; personal observations of (Bownocker, 1915, p. 61). Thus the name “bluestone” was, the authors). It has occasionally been used for exterior walls and remains, more of a commercial appellation than an accu- of buildings, including the old Euclid City Hall in Euclid, rate descriptive term (Dickinson, 1903, p. 5; Bowles, 1917, PROCEEDINGS OF THE 40TH FORUM ON THE GEOLOGY OF INDUSTRIAL MINERALS 71 p. 94; Albanese and Kelly, 1991, p. 191). One of the best classic definitions of eastern U.S. bluestone is that of Berkey (1908, p. 156), reiterated by Bowles (1939, p. 97–101), who Euclid defined the stone as “an indurated arkose sandstone.” Creek The Ohio Geological Survey now considers the Euclid 7 bluestone to be an informal unit, as did Van Horn (1931), 81 45’ N 6 BLUESTONE 41 30’ W 5 but others have considered it to be the Euclid Member of 4 the Bedford Formation (for example, Pashin and Ettensohn, Cleveland 1995). It has also been called the Euclid sandstone lentil 3 (Morse and Foerste, 1909, p. 166); the Euclid lentil (Prosser, 1912, p. 373); the Euclid Siltstone Member (for example, de Witt, 1951; Pepper and others, 1954, p. 12); and the Euclid 2 sandstone (Prosser, 1912, p. 370). The unit is Upper Devoni- 1 Cuyahoga 0 5 Miles an (Famennian) in age (Pashin and Ettensohn, 1995), but has N River been considered to be Mississippian by a number of authors 0 5 Kilometers (for example, Pepper and others, 1954). The Euclid is a discontinuous, lens-shaped layer. When seen at any particular locality, the unit appears to consist of Figure 1. Sketch map of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, showing rep- thick horizontal layers, but these layers thin out laterally and resentative localities where Euclid bluestone has been quarried. become discontinuous. Thus the Euclid is found only in part The Cuyahoga River and Euclid Creek are shown, as is the pres- of the outcrop area of the Bedford Formation. ent outline of the city of Cleveland. More than a dozen quarries once dotted Cuyahoga County. Locations shown: 1) Indepen- History of Quarrying dence quarry, Independence Township; 2) Boyas quarry, Valley View, Independence Township; 3) Caine quarry, southeast Cleve- Historically, the three most important rock units quar- land (once part of Newburgh Township); 4) Lake View Cemetery ried for building stone in northeastern Ohio were the Euclid quarry, Cleveland Heights; 5) Rockefeller quarry, Forest Hill Park, Cleveland Heights; 6) Maxwell/Malone quarry, South Euclid (once bluestone, the Berea Sandstone, and the Sharon Formation. part of Euclid); 7) Forest City (McFarland) quarry, South Euclid The Berea (Hannibal, 1985; Hannibal and others, 2006), (once part of Euclid). The star indicates the site of the quarry still quarried for dimension stone, is the best known of these. town of Bluestone, South Euclid (once part of Euclid). The Sharon was used for dimension stone in the nineteenth century and is used for crushed stone today (Hannibal and Foos, 2003; Hannibal, 2006). Although it was an important Several quarries in the early 1800s were opened just east dimension stone quarried for most of the nineteenth and and south of what was then the little town of Cleveland. This twentieth centuries in the Cleveland area, the Euclid is the predates the documented beginnings of the famous bluestone least studied of these rock units. quarries of the state of New York, which began production Euclid bluestone has been quarried along a northeast- in the mid-1800s, according to Bowles (1939, p. 97) and southwest–trending, arcuate outcrop area in and east of Albanese and Kelly (1991, p. 196). The quarries may have Cleveland (fig. 1) (Cushing and others, 1931, pl. 20; opened slightly earlier, however, as Merrill, writing in 1886, Lewis, 1988, fig. 5). It was one of the first stones quarried in the Cleveland region, as the Euclid was the closest available dimension stone both stratigraphically and geographically to the growing town of Cleveland in the early 1800s. Portions of the Euclid are composed of or weather to thin, flaggy beds (fig. 2) utilized early in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Slabs pried from rock outcrops along streams and elsewhere could be directly used for sidewalk stone after trimming. Indeed, Van Horn (1931, p. 107) not- ed that thin beds were used without sawing into the twentieth century, although to a limited extent. Beds a few inches thick could also be trimmed for use as tablet-style gravestones, in vogue during the early 1800s (Bauer and others, 2002), and as capstones for field- or rough-stone walls.