The Earth All Around Us: Selected Building Stone in Lincoln, Nebraska. A Walking Tour

Authors

William J. Wayne, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

2006

Citation

W. Wayne, The Earth All Around Us: Selected Building Stone in Lincoln, Nebraska. A Walking Tour. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Conservation and Survey Division, Educational Circular 19, 2006.

Comments

Conservation and Survey Division of the School of Natural Resources
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and College of Arts and Sciences
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Educational Circular 19
ISBN 1-56161-007-0

Abstract

Stone has been a primary building material for millennia. Cities, therefore, are treasure troves of earth materials. A wide variety of stones from many places are used for walls, as foundations to support entire buildings, as trim, and more recently as cladding (facing, an overlay). The Earth science teacher can find, in the limited space of an urban environment, a superb collection of stones with which to introduce students to these materials. The surfaces of stones on the outsides of buildings illustrate the durability and the vulnerability of each kind of stone to the local climate. And the history of the architecture of a community can be traced by observing the way stone has been used in construction and in decoration.

Contents

Introduction / 1

Background / 1

History of Stone Used in Lincoln / 2

Early Lincoln and Eastern Nebraska Building Stone / 3

Imported Dimension Stone / 8

Sandstone / 8

Limestone / 10

Marbles and crystalline limestones / 13

Granites and related igneous rocks / 15

Summary/19

Bibliography / 19

References Cited / 19

References Consulted But Not Cited / 22

Walking Tour of Building Stones Used / 22

Walking Tour of the Building Stones Between the UNL City Campus and the Nebraska State Capitol Building / 23

Glossary / 25

Includes 30 color images