Bluestone industry is a big, small industry

By TOM KANE

PENNSYLVANIA & NEW YORK - There’s an industry located in Northeast Pennsylvania and Southeastern New York State that predates the completion of the Erie Railroad along the Delaware River valley and the Delaware and Hudson Canal and yet is still growing in intensity and productivity.

That industry is the quarrying and the fabrication of bluestone.

Harry “Sonny” Triebe, president of the New York Bluestone Association and owner of Sonny & Sons Stone Company of Downsville, numbers about 140 quarrymen in his association. Robert “Butch” Coleman, president of the Pennsylvania Bluestone Association lists another 110 members.

“Many of the bluestone quarries are small ones, not full time,” Treibe said. “Many quarrymen have other jobs and work in a small quarry that they might own or lease. They may work in the late afternoon or evening to supplement their salaries to support their families.”

In recent years, however, the industry has experienced steady growth.

“We’re trying to supply the whole country,” Coleman said. “It’s a constant growth opportunity. The construction companies are always knocking at our doors.”

Triebe and Coleman estimate that the bluestone industry is worth about $300 million to $500 million today, with 4,000 to 5,000 employees in the Southern Tier and northeast Pennsylvania combined.

The biggest production of bluestone is in Susquehanna County, PA.

The stone, which historically was used for sidewalks in New York City, Philadelphia and other eastern cities, is now used for pools, walkways, patios, flooring, stairs, countertops and landscaping.

Johnston & Rhodes

One of the oldest and largest local industries, Johnston & Rhodes of East Branch, PA quarries and fabricates stone for customers all over the country. “We transport bluestone into the Midwest and the West Coast, as well as the East Coast,” said Peter Johnston, Jr. “There’s suddenly an interest in bluestone in California. Interest in bluestone took a big jump about five years ago. I think the reason is that architects are beginning to discover the diverse things bluestone can be used for.”

Johnston and Rhodes is a family business that was established by great-grandfather Johnston late in the 19th century. “My dad is the owner. I, my mother, my brother and my sister-in-law are involved in the business,” he said.

The company, which employs about 50 workers, either owns or leases over 100 quarries.

“Many of these quarries are small ones owned by one person,” he said. “It’s hard to know just how many quarries there are.”

Before the advent of bulldozers, teams of horses cleared off the overburden of rock and soil. Blasting was also used to open up a quarry. Today, quarrymen use saws with diamond-tipped blades to cut through the blocks of stone, producing smooth slabs that appear to be polished like glass.

“We own an 11-foot blade, a 10-foot blade and a 7½-foot blade,” Johnston said. “Those blades are running 24/7.”

The Bluestone Industry and the Scenic Byway

“We are against the Scenic Byway and in favor of the Town of Hancock staying out of it because, if the town were in the byway, we would have to check on the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) application for our business that we are in it and that would mean we might have to submit to a permit process that is very subjective and may hurt our ability to operate,” Johnston said.

Both the Town of Hancock and the Town of Fremont have not joined the scenic byway organization, but the Village of Hancock has.

“The creators of the byway are very supportive of the bluestone industry for historical reasons,” said Peter Osborne, Executive Director of the Minisink Valley Historical Society and founding member of the byway committee. “We see no valid reason why the industry should fear the byway, and we tried in our conversations with industry members to convey that concern.”

Nevertheless, the Towns of Hancock and Fremont, centers of the industry in New York, refused to join the byway organization, fearing that the scenic roadway would have regulations that would hurt the industry.

“If anything puts the industry out of business, it won’t be the byway,” Osborne said. “Many don’t agree with me, but I suspect that, if it happens at all, it’ll be the growth of million-dollar homes that are being built up there. Such people don’t want smelly and exploding quarries around their expensive homes.”

“I think we’re many years away from anything like that happening,” Johnston said.

Where it all started

“It is thought that the first commercial use of bluestone in our part of the world was done in Quarryville in Ulster County, NY in 1820,” Osborne wrote in a paper with Jon Inners, a geologist with the Pennsylvania Geological Survey.

“It’s hard to pin an exact date down, but it seems to have started very early in the 19th century,” Osborne said.

In 1848, a group of engineers working on the famed Starruca Viaduct, located in Lanesboro, Susquehanna County, discovered a local sandstone that they used in the construction of the viaduct.

William S. Young, author of “The Bridge of Stone,” relates how the viaduct builders were delighted to discover an abundant quantity of such a suitable stone and that quarrying became a local industry some time after the viaduct was built.