IS THE VERY BEST

CAPE GIRARDEAU LIMESTONE

Building Methods Changing In Material

and Manner of Work

James McNally, superintendent of the Regenhardt rock quarry, says the lime rock at Cape Girardeau is the best for building purposed that can be found anywhere. He says that the nature of limestone is to run in strata from seven to fifteen inches in thickness, and that it is impossible to get out a stone over fifteen inches thick, either at the Chicago or St. Louis quarries or any other that he knows of in the United States, except here. In the Regenhardt quarry at this place there are no strata, and blocks can be taken out any required six, eight, ten or more feet in thickness. They are now working below the thirty-feet level, and the deeper they go the better the rock.

Speaking of marble he said its use had become obsolete for outside work and was used mostly for inside work. The use of the steel structure, he said, had now changed the entire method of building, both as to material used and manner of work. Two things were considered essential, making the building fireproof and getting all the light possible, and the latter caused the making of spaces between all of the windows as narrow as possible, and then filled in with brick, concrete, or terra cotta. This filling in was as liable to begin on the fifth, tenth or upper story as on the lower story. Then again the first story might be plastered and completed before the roof was on, the watertight concrete floors making this possible.

Speaking of the Normal building, he said work on it could now be pushed as they would not have faulty stone to contend with, as was the case at first.

-- from the Weekly Democrat, 28 May 1094, Page 1.

Located August 1983 - Cape Public Library