Long

Since before 2017, I’ve been waiting for my chance to take the famed and fabled Thornton Quarry tour.

Thornton Quarry, in Thornton, Illinois, has an ever-growing waiting list of hopefuls awaiting a chance to descend to the lower rings of limestone tunnels and mining operations for the expansive gravel excavation operation.

On Saturday June 3, joined by my (almost) 94-year-old dad Chester, and a gang of media contemporaries like Tony Panek, radio personality of WJOB; Times of Northwest Indiana reporter Joseph Pete, and his wife, Post-Tribune reporter Meredith Colias-Pete, we all spent our morning fossil hunting and discovering where the past meets the present, as well as the future, leaving no stone unturned.

This stoned story really started in November 2019, when I received news from Munster Parks Department that “my number” on the wait list had finally “come up,” and I was able to purchase up to four tour tickets for the June 2020 Quarry Tour hosted as a bus trip. That described day trip (which never happened) not only included the tour, but also a prime rib menu lunch at Glenwood Oaks restaurant. This was to be Dad’s Christmas 2019 gift.

But in May 2020, now face-to-face with the global COVID-19 pandemic, I was contacted by the Munster Parks Department to alert us the June tour event was cancelled, and our tickets were now moved to an October Plan B date. Alas, in September that tour was also canceled, because of the escalating COVID-19 pandemic, and now I was told my name had been returned to the top of the waiting list for a June 2021 tour opportunity, which unfortunately was also later canceled.

In recent decades, the Thornton Historical Society has traditionally offered tours of the landmark quarry twice a year, on the first Saturday of June and again, on the first Saturday of October.

The Thornton Quarry is comprised of three distinct quarries, separated by the Tri-State 294 Tollway, seen above, and railroad tracks, while connected by tunnels for more than 9 million tons of stone to be mined a year. (Phil Potempa/Post-Tribune)

A limited number of area park departments, such as in Munster, as well as Dyer Parks Department, have offered their own organized pre-arranged hosted tours of the quarry on these same two weekends, with the blessing of the Thornton Historical Society, with details for future tours at www.thorntonilhistory.com.

Faithful friend and reader Diane Traher of Dyer surprised my dad and myself with tickets to the June 2023 tour, with her joining us for the adventure hosted by Dyer Parks and Recreation.

Clearly visible while driving across the state line on Interstate 294, Thornton Quarry ranks as the second largest commercial quarry in the world, since it boasts dimensions more than 1.5 miles long and a half mile wide and registering depth of more than 450 feet deep!

Before his retirement driving a semi for Jack Gray Transport, my dad Chester spent many years hauling stone from the quarry and having to maneuver his truck and trailer down the winding, narrow road paths to reach the base, and then repeat his trail back up to the surface.

This local quarry ranks as one of the most famous 410-million-year old “fossil reefs” unearthed and accessible for exploration.

During the Silurian Age so many centuries ago, our Midwest was covered by a vast tropical inland sea that contained reefs similar to those found today in the South Pacific and the Caribbean. Now, we have the trapped-in-time treasures of fossilized remains captured as stone imprints of ancient sea creatures such as crabs, brachipods, coral and prehistoric squids, the latter which could grow more than 10 feet in length.

Besides a short film shown by the Thornton Historical Society prior to tours, and then the thrill of riding a tour bus down the steep incline to reach the bottom, the most popular highlight of the tour day is a 30-minute opportunity to hunt and gather souvenir fossils, before returning “to above sea level.”

My dad was especially eager to hammer away at rocks to discover the ancient entombed fossil evidence within. The finds are expansive and plentiful, and some even history-making. On June 28, 1998, there was even a 1,000 pound meteorite discovered, which had plummeted from space more than 400 million years ago.

It was Gurdon Hubbard in 1836 who opened the first quarry on Kinzie Street, but abandoned the location because “the stone was too deep and of poor quality.” In the early 1900s, Brownell Improvement Company purchased the entire area and it was Colonel Hodgkins who bought the property in 1920, with the quarry north of Ridge Road then opened in 1924. By 1926, a tunnel was established to connect the north and south quarries, and in 1938, Material Service Corporation purchased the quarry and has continued to own and operate it now as Hanson Material Service.

The limestone quarry produces more than seven million tons of rock products a year worth a value of more than $10 million for everything from landscaping stone and crushed rock for everything from concrete mix and asphalt shingles to fertilizers and building materials.

As we learned from our tour guide, the Thornton Quarry is comprised of three distinct quarries, separated by the Tri-State Tollway and railroad tracks and connected by tunnels with more than 9 million tons of stone mined a year. Today, it is “chemical” explosives used in place of traditional dynamite to loosen rock. Another component of the operation is a giant stone “crusher” and conveyer belt system for loading up the more than 2,000 trucks loaded up daily.

And true to the descriptions provided to me throughout the decades, there really are fanciful cascading rock waterfalls at the bottom of the quarry, and a large “lake” at the bottom, the latter which has purportedly been the final resting place for discarded bodies (if popular passed around “yarns” are to be believed).

Our tour guide explained that the “lake” only boasts about 10 feet of water on the surface. However, below those ominous murky ripples is layer after layer of sentiment, akin to quicksand, with dangerous depths unimaginable to an unsuspecting sinking victim or object.

My dad’s older sister, my Auntie Lillie, who lived at our family farm with Grandma Potempa, used to show me during my youth how to make strings of “rock candy,” with a simple ingredient recipe of nothing more than boiled sugar and water. It was her own variation of a Betty Crocker recipe she clipped from a magazine years ago and it fascinated me then, and still does now. It’s an easy novelty recipe which continues to amuse me and makes for a fun garnish for summer iced tea or glasses of tart homemade lemonade.

Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at [email protected] or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.

Makes 4 candy strings

2 cups water

4 cups granulated sugar, plus additional for divided use

Cooking/kitchen string

Food coloring, if desired

Directions:

1. Pour water into a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.

2. Slowly add the sugar, about 1/2 cup at a time and use a wooden spoon to stir sugar to dissolve. Bring to a vigorous boil for 20 minutes and remove from heat.

3. If desired at a drop of food coloring of choice and allow mixture to cool.

4. Arrange 4 tall, clean glass jars and divide the cooled sugar water among the jars, filling to the top.

5. Tie one end of the kitchen string to a pencil and measure enough string to descend about 2/3 of the way into the drinking glasses. Tie a heavy washer to the other loose end of the string to serve as a weight. Repeat process for all the glasses.

6. Dip the strings into the sugar water in the glasses and allow the string to become fully saturated.

7. Sprinkle some additional granulated sugar on a piece of wax paper and roll the wet strings into the sugar and allow them to rest for 5 minutes straight and even on the wax paper.

8. Move the four drinking glasses to place where they will be safe and out of the way for two weeks or longer, depending on how long the rock candy will be allowed “to grow.” Place all four of the sugar rolled, weighted strings into the glasses of sugar water.

9. After two weeks, remove the rock candy string to a piece of wax paper and allow to dry slightly before enjoying.