Yellow Limestone

["Kent and Karen Ivey" <kkivey@zzzzzzz>]

I have been spending these last few weeks in the midst of a pretty fair
sized cow pasture  between Abilene and Albany TX, building a portable
concrete plant in prep for erection of 100 power windmills. This country
is rolling hills , good strong grass in the few inches of topsoil that
covers over some really strikingly yellow limestone. They are dynamiting
the holes  for the mills, each hole about 8 feet deep. Wish they would
give a little warning 'fore they blast , I tend to run  out from under
my hardhat every time they let off a string.

The stone they are exposing is pretty uniform ledge, 8" and 14" thick.
It breaks clean  and rings like a bell when you whack it, outside a (to
me ) very pleasing yellow color, inside a dark grey, almost like pure
cement when it has been wet..grey bordering on black on a color scale.
This stone was used  to build Albany TX, right  near the cavalry Fort
Griffin, as was the fort. Officers quarters, barracks , bakery , they
are all still there, lacking roofs, but the stone work is in very good
shape.

The officers of that time, pre civil war, came out as engineers, most of
them  that we read of in the history of the civil war were stationed in
this string of forts here that stretched across West Texas to keep the
Comanche in check.. or to try to anyway.

Looking at the mortar in the fort buildings, it is very sandy , very
soft. These guys  made their own lime down next to the river where they
had fuel to burn, and water  to slake it.

Has anyone here ever made their own lime this way ? What  does the
slaking really do  to the chemistry  of the stone?

These buildings have been standing here abandoned more than a hundred
years , but the structure is still very good, you could throw some beams
on top , roof it and move in next week. I have lived in far worse.

Albany is just a gem of a place, far from everywhere , time has stood
still , or seems it has. No urban renewal there , it is like stepping
back 100 years to walk the limestone sidewalks.
http://www.albanytexas.com/

The  Old Jail is now a first class art museum, sculpture , painting, all
the visual arts... even has a few original Picasso works.

But what I like about the jail...... when the town came together and
decided they needed a Sho Nuff  secure jail to house the yayhoos from
the Fort when they got a little too friendly ( they were never TOO
friendly till they had run out of their pay , I suspect), the town folk
had big plans , big dreams... but no money. They must have had a silver
tongued fella  as head of the chamber of commerce, because  they talked
the local stonemasons into building the jail on promise of payment at
some future date. So the masons started into work using the yayhoos from
the Fort who were on extended visitor status due to their overly
friendly actions in town as grunt labor. The masons , having this labor
force , did things like the Egyptians did, massive blocks of stone. They
used that ledge stone  I mentioned earlier, cutting slabs sometimes 10
feet long and 2 feet wide. If you are not picking it up , and have lots
of labor at your beck and call, who cares how much it weighs?.

Now the times being what they were,  very few of the masons were
literate, and perhaps did not trust a contract written on paper anyway.
A lot of them were enticed to come to Texas from Germany  by promoters
who had perhaps exaggerated the  "Land of Milk and Honey That Is Texas",
and had been bilked out of all they owned by  the sharp pencil and paper
boys.

So , to ensure that there would be no doubt about how many stones each
mason had cut and set in the jails walls, each of them cut their sign,
cartouche or name on the outside surface of each block , large enough
that there was no trouble reading it from the ground as you look up at
the walls.

All you have to do is walk around the building , and count who laid
what.

A contract written in stone , that even today's lawyers would not be
able to  fudge on.

If ya'll are ever this way, this town is worth spending some time  in...
especially when the Fandangle is playing.... You have never heard
anything like the Steam Calliope when it is in full voice, I kid you
not. 20 years ago , I rebuilt the boiler for it, and got to play it
myself... what a glorious noise I made! Still makes me grin just
thinking of it . Too bad I never learned to play the piano, I really
could have gone to town on it..

Come see us!
Kent Lee Ivey