List of Quarries in Indiana & Quarry Links, Photographs and Articles
- Bedford, Indiana – Indiana Limestone
Co., Inc. (present-day company)
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Quarries: The Source of Our Nation’s Building Stone (Indiana Limestone Company Quarries described include: “Empire / MB&B; Quarry” & the "Crown Quarry.”) (The link below that provides information and photographs of the Indiana Limestone Company quarries is no longer available, although you can view the site on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.)
<http://www.indianalimestonecompany.com/index.php?pageId=28> -
Indiana Limestone Company Products – Blocks of Limestone (Includes photos of the following colors of limestone blocks and slabs: “Standard Buff,” “Silver Buff, ” Rustic Buff, ” “Standard Gray, ” & “Full Color Blend.”)
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- Bedford, Indiana – Indiana Limestone Company’s Empire Quarry Tour, posted by the Natural Stone Institute on Facebook. (Scroll to see more photos from the tour.)
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Bedford, Indiana - Indiana Limestone Co. “Limestone A Portfolio
Depicting the labors of the Indiana Limestone Co. in Lawrence and
Monroe counties, Indiana,” by Margaret Bourke-White, Fortune Magazine,
1931.
Photograph of cut blocks 
Laborers working in Indiana Limestone Co. Quarry. See description below. 
Titan. Under the trees and soil of the Indiana hills lies the bed of an ancient inland sea, once peopled with small, shell-bearing animalcules. Dying, these formed a massive deposit of oölite, also called limestone a material which has become the glory of the American skyscraper. Titan among the world's limestone quarriers is the Indiana Limestone Co., which has learned to chisel out great slabs twelve feet deep, eighty feet long, and four feet wide.When the slabs are pulled over by huge cranes, the piles of little rocks below act as cushions to catch them. Once each slab is on its side, laborers swarm over it to drill, chip, and chisel it into smaller blocks
Limestone blocks awaiting shipment in Indiana Limestone Co. Quarry. See description below. 
"For the Pyramids of America. The blocks of the Egyptian pyramids weighed two and one-half tons (joined together into larger units). The average run of blocks of the Indiana Limestone Co. weigh from five to forty tons., though mammoth units of more than a hundred tons can be handled. Summer is the quarrying season, when thousands of tons of limestone are collected in the stacking yards.for shipment. On large jobs the stone is cut to the architect's specifications, loaded in trucks, and lifted directly to its proper place on the walls. It is timed to the building job (where, of course, there is no storage space) by 1,000-mile telephonic connections between foremen."
More limestone blocks stacked in yard. 
"The Hand of the Architect. controls from afar the gang saws that cut the slabs into rough strips according to his specifications. Some wide, some narrow, each is already marked for its place in a skyscraper's wall." 
"A Diamond-Toothed Rotor.receiving piles of slabs from the gang saws, cross-cuts them into handier sizes, gives them a perfect finish for the walls of American cities at 700 revolutions per minute." 
Source of Empire State Building Limestone. See description below. 
- Bedford, Indiana – the Indiana Quarries Company (Article about the S. W. Straus Building & the Chicago Tribune building in Chicago, Illinois, entitled, “Selecting Stone for Monumental Buildings,” Stone, July 1925, pp. 413-414)
"Here Lay The Empire State Building.in prehistoric majesty before its 207,000 cubic feet of limestone (18,630 tons) were quarried and shipped to Manhattan. The great hole is now abandoned. Rain water collects in it; moisture seeps in through its ledges; it is forgotten. Eventually, stuffed with refuse and rejected blocks, it will disappear from the sight of man."
- Bedford, Indiana – The Indiana Quarries Company ( from Stone, Vol. XLVI, No. 7, July 1925, pp. 412)
- Bedford, Indiana - Limestone Quarry at Bedford, Indiana (This
postcard contributed by Bev Harber from her great-aunt Edna Trotter’s
travel photograph collection.)
(postcard photograph #F-468; manufactured by Wayne Paper Box 8 Prtg. Corp., Fort Wayne, Ind.; unmailed) 
- Bedford, Indiana – Oolitic
Limestone Quarry near Bedford Indiana (photo
contributed by Bev Harber from her great-aunt Edna Trotter’s
travel photograph collection. Below is the caption Edna Trotter wrote
on the back of the photograph:
(Photo caption) “Wed. afternoon – Aug. 26, 1942. One of the famous Bedford Stone quarries near Bedford, Ind. (on our way to McCormicks Creek) ‘Oolitic Limestone’” 
- Bedford, Indiana - Opening Quarry "Key Block," Bedford, Indiana.
(postcard photograph, 10865; Hoover-Watson Printing Co., Indianapolis, Ind.; no postmark, early 1900s) 
(Excerpt from the article) “Rising to a height of 475 feet, or 215 feet above the Chicago building height limit of 264 pierces the sky-line as a monument of a new architecture. This massive structure takes the form of a hollow square, built around the site, with an inside light and air court entirely surrounded by offices. This main shaft of building is twenty-two stores high and carries a ten-story tower on the Michigan Avenue side…The first five stories are faced in Select Buff Indiana Oolitic Limestone and the balance, including the tower in Variegated Indiana Limestone. All of this stone was quarried and furnished by the Indiana Quarries Company of Bedford, Indiana….”
| “S. W. Straus Building, Chicago, as seen from Grant Park. Architects: Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, exterior of Select Buff and Variegated Indiana Limestone furnished by the Indiana Quarries Company. Cut Stone Contractors: The Central Oolitic Stone Company.” |  |
| “New home of the Kearney National Bank, Kearney, New Jersey. A structure of pleasing, yet substantial design, especially attractive for a surburban (sic) community. Exterior of No. 1 Buff Indiana Limestone furnished by the Indiana Quarries Company. Davidson Brothers, cut stone contractors. Salmans (sic), Scrimshaw Company, architects and general contractors.” |  |
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