France Stone Co. Quarry, Bellevue, Sandusky County, Ohio, USAi

Regional Level Types
France Stone Co. Quarry	Quarry
Bellevue	City
Sandusky County	County
Ohio	State
USA	Country

The France Stone Company Bellevue Quarry is an abandoned quarry for building stone and aggregate located in the NE ¼ of Section 25 and the SE ¼ of Section 34, Bellevue, Sandusky County. The rocks exposed in the quarry are identified as part of the Detroit River Group and Columbus Sandstone (Carlson, 2015, p. 187).

Although quarrying limestone had been ongoing at Bellevue since settlers first arrived at the town, Winchell (1873, p. 603-606) was the first geologist to study and analyze the rock at Bellevue. At the time, five independent quarries were located fairly close to each other. These quarries were shallow, averaging about 20-30 feet deep at the maximum depth. The quarry that belonged to Samuel Huffman in the 1870s, eventually became the central location to where the France Stone Company quarried their limestone later. There is little evidence of the other historical quarries today, though they are likely outside of the city limits.

The reason for the large amount of independent quarries had to do with the most important industry in Bellevue; the railroads. Four railroads went through the city limits in the 1870s: The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad and the Nickel Plate Railroad [New York, Chicago, & St. Louis). The railroads provided an easy way to transport the stone quarried at Bellevue to major cities in Ohio.

In 1899, the Bellevue Stone Company had purchased the site (Hoyt, 1901, p. 457), and in seven years built a new crusher and quarrying plant. In 1911, the France Stone Company (Ohio Journal of Commerce, 1911, p. 111) purchased half of the controlling interest of the Bellevue Stone Company to take advantage of the railroad market and to make a concerted effort of consolidating the lime stone companies of northwestern Ohio. Improvements including a new plant were made shortly after the France Stone Company acquired half of the controlling interest. By the 1940s, the France Stone Company was the sole operator of the quarry at Bellevue and the New York Central Railroad and the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad (which was leased to the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad) had active sidings at the quarry.

The quarry became inactive in the mid-1980s (Carlson, 1990, p. 528) and was then closed to collectors shortly thereafter. The quarry today is on private property and fenced in.

Ernest Carlson noted that the France Stone Co., Bellevue Quarry was best known for producing attractive calcite crystals and iridescent fluorite crystals in the 1960s when it was open to collectors. Other oddities found at the quarries included chocolate brown fluorite crystals with centrally depressed faces that were approximately 8 mm in length and calcite crystals up to 25 mm in length. The calcite crystals at Bellevue were particularly prized by collectors because the crystals showed a hexagonal dipyramid, similar to those found at Kelly’s Island. Mineralization was the most prevalent in the brown dolostones of the Detroit River Group and the gray dolostones in the lower part of the Columbus Limestone (Carlson, 1990, p. 528-529).

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References