Stone Quarry

Pieces of sandstone from the quarry

NPS

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Most of this hillside was once one of the stone quarries used to build the Allegheny Portage Railroad. The local sandstone was needed for bridges, tunnel arches and even the railroad ties themselves! Workers toiled long days for as little as 50 cents per day drilling, cutting and chiseling the stone. All the work was done by hand. One stone railroad tie, called a “sleeper” in those days, took 24 hours of labor to complete. And the workers were able to produce over 200,000 of these sleepers. Look at or feel the marks left behind from these stonecutters on the outcropping of stone near the boardwalk. These marks are from the hand drills that were used to split large blocks of stone into smaller ones. Feel how rough the stone is and imagine how tough your hands would have become handling this for hours on end each day. Listen closely, sometimes you can still hear the sound of their tools ringing through the woods-Oh, wait that’s just one of our park rangers demonstrating how those sleepers were made. If you hear that sound, please go check out the program!