Limestone Quarry Tour In A Ghost Town

 At a small town fall celebration we went on a free bus tour of a limestone quarry at the ghost town of Phenix, MO (spelled correctly!)  The site was once the center of a bustling limestone mining operation, complete with a "company town", "company store, school, church, and activity center for over 1000 employees in it's heyday around 1922.  The stone was distributed widely at the time. The New York Stock Exchange was built from limestone quarried here.

Apparently it was an expensive operation, and was forced to close during the Great Depression.  A few years ago, it was reopened on a much smaller scale. The limestone quarried now actually has replaced some of the original limestone quarried there in buildings like the Missouri Capitol.

They are also supplying countertops for homes.  Including ours!  Our kitchen countertop, bathroom countertop and shower interior is all made from this limestone.  It is one of rare types of limestone that can be "polished", but our doesn't look like it has be polished much.  You can see fossils in our countertops, which I find really interesting.  The tour guide says they find alot of starfish in the limestone.