View print quality imageSpecial events and tours are planned in the city of Bloomington and on the Indiana University Bloomington campus throughout June to honor Indiana's limestone heritage.
Limestone Month was organized in 2007 by Visit Bloomington and the Lawrence County Tourism Commission as a special month recognized by both Monroe and Lawrence counties. This year's events mark a decade of celebrating the "element that shaped Indiana history."
The Stone Belt -- a 10-mile-wide and 30-mile-long stretch that runs from Owen County southeast through Monroe and Lawrence counties and into northwest Washington County -- is where the most profitable Indiana limestone can be found.
"The limestone in this area is known to the stone industry as Indiana limestone, to geologists as the Salem limestone and locally as Bedford stone or Oolitic limestone," said Polly Sturgeon, the educational outreach coordinator at the Indiana Geological Survey, which is one of the hosts of Limestone Month events.
"It has a pure uniform composition, occurs in thick beds, has an absence of pronounced bedding or grain and is especially well-suited for quarrying, which makes it profitable."
