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Re: Sandstone, limestone and weed -- way off topic, way long

152.163.195.206

Posted by Tim Moorman on June 18, 2002 at 23:57:59

In Reply to: Sandstone posted by haugenmarka@hotmail.com on June 18, 2002 at 20:00:46:

In the fifties, one of Indiana's biggest exports was limestone. Still pretty big around Bloomington and south. Most of I.U.'s campus is comprised of great old limestone structures, the stone quarried and cut within a short distance. Many of the court houses, government buildings, and schools around the country are encased in it. Cost has gotten very high, but it sure beats vinyl siding. The locals around Bloomington were called "stonies" by the students. The abandoned and flooded quarries all over Morgan and Monroe counties still make for great recreation. Known for skinny dippin' those first warm spring days.

Limestone is also the source for great water. Kentucky claims to be the thoroughbred state, and it is chiefly because of the water. In the 1800's, before technology and chemistry intervened, a thoroughbred's leg bones were found to be much stronger when drinking water filtered naturally with limestone.

So what do you do with all that great limestone-filtered water to the south and endless corn to the north? Make bourbon, of course. Best in the world. No idea on strength of bourbon drinkers'leg bones. Or livers. Big Seagrams distillery right on the Indiana shores of the Ohio River around Lawrenceville. But the smaller distilleries in Kentucky make the really good stuff. Never a big fan, but I applaud the spirit(spirits)of enterprise.

Steel was another big export, again because of huge amounts of water needed in the processing, and the barges needed to deliver iron ore. The Gary steel mills on Lake Michigan were supposedly 4th or 5th on the Soviet ICBM hit list during the Cold War. Mini-mills are gradually replacing these monsters.

Scary as hell place to work, a rolling mill.
Picture an almost white hot 12 ft long by a foot square 3600lb ingot dropping out of the mouth of an immense furnace on to a powered conveyor. The speed of the conveyor has to be fast enough to whiz this molten mass through a series of rolling presses to reduce and flatten the steel, while still maleable, into a sheet up 52" wide, but only 1/16th" or less thick. Comes down the conveyor like a lava dam burst. Huge blast of light and heat and noise. All senses tell you to run.
Occasionally, it comes off the conveyor. Now you have this red hot steel tongue from hell lashing around severing anything in its path--building columns, lift trucks, steel workers. Whistles blow, sirens wail, the line gets shut down. An overhead crane blasts down the runway, horns blaring, and drop this huge electromagnet down on the errant steel, while workers in (formerly) asbestos suits run or drive out dragging the torch and welder to cut the misaligned section free, and reattach the ends together. Temperature up this close is incredible. Then off the conveyor goes, and we're back in business. The crane hauls the section away and it gets fed back into the furnace.

During WW2, the U.S.Government planted marijuana all across the prairie areas in the northwestern and north central parts of the state for the production of hemp. Still grows wild all over these same areas, around North Judson seems the heaviest concentrations, and every year the police and farmers chase the kids out of the fields around September/October. They spray it, burn it, plow it under, but it keeps reappearing. When they burn off large areas, it is rumored that large crowds assemble just downwind.

Popcorn is still big business. I've been to most of the big plants, and it is unbelieveable how much of the stuff gets shipped out. Think in terms of almost continuous semi loads round the clock at twenty doors in one facility. I think microwaves must have kicked production up many fold. We(the company) relocated about 5 acres of storage rack for Weaver popcorn, each about 20 ft high, and this would hold maybe a week's production. Orville Reddenbacher dwarfs this output. So, keep poppin'.

Tim

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