Using hand tools and lots of labor, the creative homesteaders removed slabs of stone, shaped them into 5 – 6-foot posts, and hauled them to their final destination, where they were planted in the ground and strung with barbed wire. Word of the use of stone for structures spread quickly in the 1870’s. and the roughly 18 counties in Kansas that could supply the stone, a 200 mile stretch of land running southwest from Republic County near the Nebraska border to north of Dodge City, became known as Post Rock Country. By the early 1900’s a 500-pound post would sell for 10 to 35 cents.
To quarry the rock and form the posts, a worker had to be strong and patient. A walking plow with a team of mules loosened the soil, allowing it to be scraped away from the 10 to 12 inch thick slab of rock. A hand drill formed a line of ¾ inch holes in the rock, and two tools known as the “feather and wedge” were used to break the stone into a column. Two tapered metal rods (the feathers) were tapped into the holes until they were at the same depth and then the wedge was gradually hammered in between the feathers to split the rock. The posts were set 6 strides apart and 18 inches deep, and one of several methods of attaching the wire to the post was chosen.
Although most stone posts quarrying was over by the 1920’s the limestone is in much demand for decorative pieces that serve as welcome signs and college allegiances for countless homes and businesses. The process of creating the posts and carvings on them is much less demanding now as electric and hydraulic drills, sand blasters and chiselers are used. To see a crosscut of a quarry with the limestone foundation, along with all of the tools once used in the arduous processing of forming posts from stone, visit the Post Rock Museum in La Crosse, Kansas. The museum itself is a stone house built on a Kansas homestead in 1883, by settlers who looked beneath the prairie at their feet and found buildings blocks for their future.
This episode of High Plains History is dedicated to the memory of Hays, Kansas artist Pete Felton and the extraordinary limestone sculptures he created throughout his 92 years.
Thanks to Jan Gantz and her book Ness County Revisited Vol. 2. For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Lynn Boitano.
High Plains History is a production of High Plains Public Radio.
