CTroyMathis
06 January 2003, 12:58 AM
Just a stone’s throw away
Renewed look with the same old rock
01/05/2003
By Tom Reedy / Staff Writer
The Denton Record-Chronicle
The original quarry for the stone used to build the historic Denton County Courthouse on the Square has been found, thanks to some astute detective work by a county employee, and the owners of the land say they’ll donate the stone needed for the restoration that is scheduled to begin later this month.
Four types of stone — polished granite, Pecos red sandstone, buff sandstone and shellstone, a form of limestone — make up what architects call the "building envelope," the outside walls of the 106-year-old structure.
Architexas, the architectural firm chosen to design and oversee the restoration, made a detailed survey of the stone almost two years ago to determine which ones need to be replaced and which can be repaired.
Some stones are so damaged that they will have to be cut out and replaced, and the architects have always said they hoped that replacements could come from the original quarry. But its exact location was a mystery until the project caught the imagination of Clarence McCraw, senior buyer for the county’s purchasing department.
"The question was asked in the pre-bid meeting if they were going to try to match the original stone on the building, and the architect said that was his wish, although at the time no one really knew where the quarry was," Mr. McCraw said.
He went to the county museum in the Courthouse on the Square and bought a copy of Building the Denton County Courthouse, 1895-1897, and learned that most of the building stone came from the farm of William Ganzer that was located seven miles north of Denton in 1896. Mr. McCraw then went to the county clerk’s office and searched old land records.
"It was like a shot in the dark, because I was just looking for something that described the Ganzer property," he said. "The lady over in the county clerk’s office suggested I start looking in 1880, and luckily, after searching only two years of hand-written records, we found this transaction."
What he found was an 1882 land sale that described the location of Mr. Ganzer’s 657-acre farm.
"I went over to the county planning and zoning and got a plat map, and of course we mapped out where that 600 acres should have been, and from there we had a general area of where this quarry probably was, where they probably got the stone from," he said.
From a conversation with Mike Riley, a foreman at the road and bridge department, he learned that there was evidence of digging at the old farm.
"There’s a creek there that runs across Ganzer Road east of I-35, and he had mentioned that there were two places along the creek that you could tell by the way it was terraced that someone had at one time removed some of that dirt and were doing something there," Mr. McCraw said. "So with a little bit more investigation and with permission of the property owner, we were able to go out there, and we pretty much think we’ve located that quarry."
Danny Brumley, manager of operations and maintenance for the county, said he was awed by the sense of history around the site.
"I thought, ‘This is crazy, we’re not going to see that stone just laying out on the ground,’ but sure enough, it was," he said. "You could see it here and there, but there’s a big old tree down there, and you walk down to that tree and see big old rocks. It was kind of exciting to me to stand there and think, ‘They did all this by hand back then.’"
Larry Irsik of Architexas says he also believes they found the right quarry, but further tests will be done to make sure.
"We found a couple of different areas where the stone could have been quarried from," he said. "It’s real evident by the markings on the stone and how it was cut."
A stone from the site was taken to compare with the courthouse walls.
"We confirmed visually that we had the right stone," Mr. Irsik said. "Now the next step is to have the stone tested on the building and at the quarry site, because we want to make sure it has a similar compression strength and the same rate of absorption."
Of the four types of stone used on the building, the limestone has the most damage and is the hardest to match because of the large number of fossil shells, he said.
"The buff sandstone has a lot of damage, but that color is pretty readily available, so that’s not really going to be a problem, and the Pecos red sandstone doesn’t have that much damage, and the granite doesn’t have really any," Mr. Irsik said. "We really found the most unusual stone on the building, so that is really good."
The owner of the property, Galatyn Park Corporation, a land development company owned by the Hunt Petroleum Corporation of Dallas, has agreed to donate stone from the quarry to the county, assistant district attorney Bob Schell said Friday.
"All we need now is a license agreement," Mr. Schell said. "Once that license agreement is in place, that will give us the right to go out there and get the stone off their land at no cost to the county except for contractor costs."
Representatives of Galatyn Park Corporation could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Brumley said that the county has agreed to clean up the area after the stone has been cut and hauled off as one of the conditions of the agreement
"They’re being very gracious about letting us out there to do whatever we need to do for nothing," he said.
Renewed look with the same old rock
01/05/2003
By Tom Reedy / Staff Writer
The Denton Record-Chronicle
The original quarry for the stone used to build the historic Denton County Courthouse on the Square has been found, thanks to some astute detective work by a county employee, and the owners of the land say they’ll donate the stone needed for the restoration that is scheduled to begin later this month.
Four types of stone — polished granite, Pecos red sandstone, buff sandstone and shellstone, a form of limestone — make up what architects call the "building envelope," the outside walls of the 106-year-old structure.
Architexas, the architectural firm chosen to design and oversee the restoration, made a detailed survey of the stone almost two years ago to determine which ones need to be replaced and which can be repaired.
Some stones are so damaged that they will have to be cut out and replaced, and the architects have always said they hoped that replacements could come from the original quarry. But its exact location was a mystery until the project caught the imagination of Clarence McCraw, senior buyer for the county’s purchasing department.
"The question was asked in the pre-bid meeting if they were going to try to match the original stone on the building, and the architect said that was his wish, although at the time no one really knew where the quarry was," Mr. McCraw said.
He went to the county museum in the Courthouse on the Square and bought a copy of Building the Denton County Courthouse, 1895-1897, and learned that most of the building stone came from the farm of William Ganzer that was located seven miles north of Denton in 1896. Mr. McCraw then went to the county clerk’s office and searched old land records.
"It was like a shot in the dark, because I was just looking for something that described the Ganzer property," he said. "The lady over in the county clerk’s office suggested I start looking in 1880, and luckily, after searching only two years of hand-written records, we found this transaction."
What he found was an 1882 land sale that described the location of Mr. Ganzer’s 657-acre farm.
"I went over to the county planning and zoning and got a plat map, and of course we mapped out where that 600 acres should have been, and from there we had a general area of where this quarry probably was, where they probably got the stone from," he said.
From a conversation with Mike Riley, a foreman at the road and bridge department, he learned that there was evidence of digging at the old farm.
"There’s a creek there that runs across Ganzer Road east of I-35, and he had mentioned that there were two places along the creek that you could tell by the way it was terraced that someone had at one time removed some of that dirt and were doing something there," Mr. McCraw said. "So with a little bit more investigation and with permission of the property owner, we were able to go out there, and we pretty much think we’ve located that quarry."
Danny Brumley, manager of operations and maintenance for the county, said he was awed by the sense of history around the site.
"I thought, ‘This is crazy, we’re not going to see that stone just laying out on the ground,’ but sure enough, it was," he said. "You could see it here and there, but there’s a big old tree down there, and you walk down to that tree and see big old rocks. It was kind of exciting to me to stand there and think, ‘They did all this by hand back then.’"
Larry Irsik of Architexas says he also believes they found the right quarry, but further tests will be done to make sure.
"We found a couple of different areas where the stone could have been quarried from," he said. "It’s real evident by the markings on the stone and how it was cut."
A stone from the site was taken to compare with the courthouse walls.
"We confirmed visually that we had the right stone," Mr. Irsik said. "Now the next step is to have the stone tested on the building and at the quarry site, because we want to make sure it has a similar compression strength and the same rate of absorption."
Of the four types of stone used on the building, the limestone has the most damage and is the hardest to match because of the large number of fossil shells, he said.
"The buff sandstone has a lot of damage, but that color is pretty readily available, so that’s not really going to be a problem, and the Pecos red sandstone doesn’t have that much damage, and the granite doesn’t have really any," Mr. Irsik said. "We really found the most unusual stone on the building, so that is really good."
The owner of the property, Galatyn Park Corporation, a land development company owned by the Hunt Petroleum Corporation of Dallas, has agreed to donate stone from the quarry to the county, assistant district attorney Bob Schell said Friday.
"All we need now is a license agreement," Mr. Schell said. "Once that license agreement is in place, that will give us the right to go out there and get the stone off their land at no cost to the county except for contractor costs."
Representatives of Galatyn Park Corporation could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Brumley said that the county has agreed to clean up the area after the stone has been cut and hauled off as one of the conditions of the agreement
"They’re being very gracious about letting us out there to do whatever we need to do for nothing," he said.