Hummelstown brownstone is a medium-grain, dense

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

quarried A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

near Hummelstown in

Dauphin County Dauphin County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Daffin Kaundi) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 286,401. The county seat is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capital and ninth-most populous city. ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, USA. It is a dark

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Ty ...

with reddish to purplish hues, and was once widely used as a building stone in the United States.

History

The

Hummelstown Brownstone Company From 1863 to 1929, the Hummelstown Brownstone Company owned and operated quarries in the Hummelstown, Pennsylvania area which produced Hummelstown brownstone, once widely used as a building stone throughout the US. The quarries of the Hummelstown ...

quarried high quality brownstone near Hummelstown from 1863 to 1929 and sold it across the U.S. as a preferred masonry material of builders. Because of its durability, it was used for a wide range of building projects, especially as trim and ornamentation on large buildings, but also as bridge piers and in the foundations and walls of buildings or the sculptures that decorated them. Frequently, entire buildings were dressed in Hummelstown brownstone. An example of this is the

Barbour County Courthouse The Barbour County Courthouse in Philippi, West Virginia, Philippi, Barbour County, West Virginia, Barbour County, West Virginia, USA is a monumental public building constructed between 1903 and 1905 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It ...

(1903–05) in

Philippi Philippi (; , ''Phílippoi'') was a major Greek city northwest of the nearby island, Thasos. Its original name was Crenides (, ''Krēnĩdes'' "Fountains") after its establishment by Thasian colonists in 360/359 BC. The city was renamed by Phili ...

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

. Hummelstown brownstone and similar sandstones were known as “ freestone” because of properties allowing them to be worked freely in every direction, rather than in one direction along a “grain”. This characteristic made them very popular with stone cutters and masons.

References

{{reflist Masonry Stone (material) Geologic formations of Pennsylvania Sandstone in the United States Building materials