Stone City

    The lodge at Palisades-Kepler is a massive stone structure built in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps. A huge furnace was used to heat the lodge  and  the heat was vented by duct work under the floor and out seven of these 6" X 28" grate openings.  Our other job at Palisades was to lay a base in each opening and fill it in with limestone block.

 So our next stop was the

 Weber Stone Company in Stone City, it has one of the largest production capacities in the Midwest to pick up 7 blocks to work up to slide in to the vent openings.

 Grant Wood captured the natural splendor of Stone City, Iowa. The wondrous beauty of this painting still remains in the valley of Stone City. The monumental buildings and rolling hills are as pronounced as when Grant Wood created this painting years ago.

Over a 80 years has passed since the CCC used limestone from Stone City to building of many park facilities. The roads, hiking trails, entry portals, lodge and other timber and stone structures.

After laying our final course of stone for the day at the parks entry way.  We decided to try our hand at facing the stone.



We marked a line about 1/2" in on the stone face and struck the stone flaking off the edge to create a bull nose edge on the stone. 







 We made quick work of job and we're set to go for the next day.






The camping and the food were some of the  best things about the job.

Mart, making toads in a hole or pop eyes for breakfast.

















Oh ya... the company that stopped by the camp  was GREAT too.








Back out to the job on Monday for some log work.