Hokie Stone

Burruss Hall — with Hokie Stone façade.
Hokie Stone façade detail, on O'Shaughnessy Hall.

Hokie Stone is a grey dolomite—limestone rock found near Blacksburg, in western Virginia. It gets its name from the common nickname attributed to students and alumni of Virginia Tech.

Hokie Stone is exclusively quarried for use by Virginia Tech projects. The stone is the primary finishing and façade material on many Virginia Tech campus buildings.

Geology

Hokie Stone is limestone infused with magnesium and calcium under intense pressure and temperature. Formation of the stone began 450 million years ago when the area that is now the Southwestern part of Virginia was covered by a shallow sea.[1] Hokie Stone with impurities such as siltstone and sandstone is multi-colored and found on some newer Blacksburg campus structures.[1]

South slope of the main quarry in Blacksburg.

Quarry

Eighty percent of the stone is quarried from a 40-acre (160,000 m2) Virginia Tech-owned quarry a few miles from campus near the Highland Park subdivision of Blacksburg, Virginia.[1] Twenty-five to thirty Virginia Tech employees use black powder each day to dislodge the stone, cut it into block sizes required by campus construction projects and then finish the blocks by hand using hammers and chisels. In 2010 Virginia Tech upgraded the quarry equipment to reduce costs, including the purchase of a computer-driven saw.[1] Hokie Stone from this quarry can only be sold to Virginia Tech.[1]

The remaining 20% of stone, which is black, is mined once per year from an additional quarry located on a local farm near Lusters Gate. About 50 tons can be quarried each week.[1] This university-owned quarry has been in operation since the 1950s.[2][3]

History

The native woodland Indians are believed to have made tools from Hokie Stone.[1]

Use with Collegiate Gothic style on Johnson Hall.
Use with modernist style on Pamplin Hall.
Norris Hall — with Hokie Stone façade.

At Virginia Tech

Buildings

When the university was founded in 1872, buildings were brick structures, reflecting the architecture of Blacksburg at that time. The first Hokie Stone was cut in 1899 for the YMCA Building (present day Performing Arts Building), the first to be constructed of it. In 1914, the first McBryde Hall introduced the Hokie Stone-clad Gothic Revival style, similar to great European universities, which became the official architectural style of the campus.[3] The first stone dormitory, Main Campbell Hall, originally known as barracks No. 8 was built in 1930.[4]

Between the 1940s and the 1970s, a number concrete and brick structures absent of Hokie Stone such as Hillcrest Hall, Cowgill Hall, Dietrick Hall, Litton Reaves Hall, Wallace Hall, Derring Hall, the Cassell Coliseum and several dorms on the Upper Quad were built. In 1975 the Tech Foundation bought the quarry from the local Cupp family.[1] In 2010, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors made it official policy that Hokie Stone be the predominant material in the façade of every new building on the Blacksburg central campus.[3][5] Today each campus project uses an average of 1,500 tons of Hokie Stone, with each ton of stone covering about 35 square feet.[2][6] The use of the local stone may add as much as $1 million to the cost of a new building.[1]

Other uses

In addition to building exteriors, Hokie Stone is used in important monuments such as biographical markers outside each campus building providing a brief history of the person for whom the building is named. Thirty-two Hokie Stones were quarried by university stonemasons and engraved with the names of students and professors killed in the April 2007 school shooting. The memorial is a permanent version of one students spontaneously created using smaller stones.[7] The Virginia Tech football team enters the playing field at Lane Stadium through a tunnel with an exit topped by a block of Hokie Stone which is touched by each player.[8] In 2011, Virginia Tech offered Hokie Stone as an option for the centerpiece of class rings.[9]

On September 26, 2013, the football team wore helmets decorated in a Hokie Stone motif for their game at Georgia Tech.[10]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Moxley, Tonia (November 22, 2011). "Upgraded Hokie Stone Quarry Rolls Out More Rock". Roanoke Times. Retrieved February 3, 2012.
  2. 1 2 Paper, Jodi (Summer 2006). "A Hokie Stone by Any Other Name is not Hokie Stone" (PDF). Building Stone Magazine. Retrieved February 3, 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 "Virginia Tech's Stone of Tradition" (pdf). Virginia Tech, University Relations. 2011. Retrieved February 3, 2012.
  4. ↑ http://www.vt.edu/about/buildings/campbell-hall.html
  5. ↑ Board of Visitors Meeting minutes November 8, 2010. Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. p.4. Retrieved February 3, 2012
  6. ↑ Pulliam, Daniel (June 18, 2004). "Chiseling away - one Hokie stone at a time". Roanoke Times. Retrieved February 3, 2012.
  7. ↑ Vargas, Theresa (August 20, 2007). "In Blacksburg, a Solid Reminder of Lives Lost". Washington Post. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
  8. ↑ Jenkins, Lee (November 4, 2005). "For College Football Thrills, Go South and Stop at the Calf". New York Times.
  9. ↑ Block, Gordon (October 12, 2009). "Tonight's 100th ring ceremony celebrates heritage". Collegiate Times.
  10. ↑ "Va. Tech to don 'Hokie Stone' helmets". ESPN.com. September 24, 2013. Retrieved September 24, 2013.
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