On the trail of IU’s limestone tradition

Despite the many changes IU has undergone since the 1900s, one thing has maintained a constant presence at a campus consistently voted one of the prettiest in the nation: the limestone.

Visitors, students and locals can follow the limestone and all of its ornaments and nuances with a self-guided walking tour of the campus written by Brian Keith, a senior scientist at the Indiana Geological Survey.

“Regardless of all the different factors, all of the buildings are using the same material,” Keith said. “That’s what makes the campus beautiful.”

The tour covers 19 of the buildings on campus, starting at the Sample Gates at Indiana and Kirkwood Avenues and ending at the Indiana Memorial Union on Seventh Street.

It gives a brief history and explanation of the decoration on each of the buildings, as well as the year they were built and an overview of the different architectural styles on campus.

“My goal whenever I walk around campus is always to see something I’ve never seen before (in the buildings),” Keith said. “And usually that works.”

Brochures for the self-guided tours are available at the Bloomington Visitors Center on North Walnut Street, the Indiana Geological Survey at the corner of 10th Street and Walnut Grove Avenue and at the IU Visitor Information Center on Indiana Avenue.
Indiana limestone, or Salem limestone as it’s geologically called, is particularly abundant in south-central Indiana because hundreds of millions of years ago when Indiana’s topography formed, it was south of the equator covered by a shallow, warm sea.

Since limestone is actually composed of millions of tiny fossil shells from organisms that lived in the water, it was the ideal environment for limestone to form.

Keith said that originally the early University administrations used limestone because it was a vibrant local industry and — since there were hundreds of active quarries in the area — it was easier and therefore less costly to transport to campus.

“This really is a unique and pretty place besides just a place to go to school,” Keith said. “I’ve lived and worked here for more than 30 years and I never get tired of walking around looking at it ... but it took me more than 20 years to really start appreciating it.”

For more information, call the Bloomington Visitors Center at 812-334-8900 or the Indiana Geological Survey at 812-855-7636.