Along the Straight River in River Bend Nature Center, there are two remnant limestone quarries that operated in the first decades of the 1900s. Operated by Eberhart Kaul and George Lieb, these quarries provided limestone for the construction of many local buildings including the Shattuck School, the School for the Blind, the School for the Deaf, and the Faribault Regional Center.
Both quarries took advantage of the Straight River which exposed much of the underlying Ordovician-age bedrock. To the left is the stratigraphy of Lieb’s quarry, which would have been similar to that of Kaul’s quarry. The upper shale was not considered very profitable and referred to as “stripping,” whereas the buried limestone was useful for construction and described as “attractive in color”.
Image source: Minnesota State Geological Survey, 1918, link
Today, visitors can find the remains of Kaul’s along the Trout Lily trail on the west side of the river. Lieb’s quarry is less accessible, located between the river and adjacent farmland.
This map, drawn by Clem Kaul sometime after 1902, depicts Kaul’s quarry (marked with an A) on some of the land that is now the River Bend Nature Center.
Image source: hand drawn map by Clem Kaul, link
