Lemont, Illinois

Lemont was settled in eighteen thirty-six, and its future was decided by a shovel. Workers digging the Illinois and Michigan Canal discovered an exceptional grade of dolomite limestone just below the topsoil. The stone, known locally as Athens Marble and commercially as Joliet-Lemont limestone, turned out to be one of the finest building materials in the Midwest.

Quarries opened across the hillsides, and for the next half century Lemont limestone went into some of the most significant structures in the region, including the Chicago Water Tower, Holy Name Cathedral, and the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. By the early nineteen hundreds the quarries declined as Indiana limestone and concrete took over, but the legacy is visible in Lemont's own downtown, where thirty-eight historic limestone buildings earned the neighborhood a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in twenty sixteen.