Perry County Rocks

Perry County Rocks. Ohio River Scenic Byway. The central part of southern Indiana has an abundance of rocks. Throughout the nineteenth century and continuing to the present, the extractive industry has benefited from easy access to Ohio River transport. For decades, Perry County tapped the enormous supply of limestone, sandstone and coal found in the area. These are sedimentary rocks, souvenirs of the ice age. Limestone is a Mississippian-age grainstone which was deposited over 400 million years ago, along with gypsum, dolostone, shale, siltstone and chert., Indiana limestone's uniform texture has made it a favorite building stone throughout the world, bringing about $26 million annually. Although the major source of this limestone is north of Perry County, in Monroe and Lawrence counties, crushed limestone is produced in many locations along the Ohio River, especially by Mulzer Crushed Stone in nearby Tell City. Sandstone was plentiful during the last century, especially along the bluffs in Perry County., In 1836 Seth Hunt opened a business on the hillside behind Cannelton to quarry coal and sandstone. Twenty years passed before the business moved "into the black", but not before he supplied sandstone for the Indiana Cotton Mill at Cannelton., From 1849 to 1861 the quarry was not used by Hunt, allowing members of the community to cut stone for many buildings in Cannelton, including St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church. This impressive edifice was built in 1858. Its 156-foot spire dominates the townscape. Other quarries operated in the Cannelton area, supplying materials for locks and dams, building foundations and stone blocks. The stone was shipped to many areas of the country., By the Way: , When the territorial legislature established Perry County in 1814, it named it after Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who had defeated the British on Lake Erie in 1813, during America’s second war with England.