Stonehenge in England, the Egyptian pyramids and the Aztec temples in Mexico are among the world's most famous stone structures -- ancient and mysterious constructions.
But Arkansas is no slouch when it comes to big things made out of rock. Besides Allen Klak's garden, these are among the state's hardest-to-top feats of stonemasonry:
• Devil's Den State Park near Fayetteville. The Civilian Conservation Corps set to work on this secluded park in 1933. The job provided employment under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression. Starting with a gravel road, the crew went on to build a stone dam, cabins, a restaurant, and trails with stone steps. The park includes a statue representative of the men who got the job done: a small but muscular, bare-chested worker with a shovel and the motto: "We can take it."
• Quigley's Castle at Eureka Springs. The story goes that Mrs. Quigley tore down the old house -- a lumber shack -- to force Mr. Quigley to build the kind of home she wanted. Mr. Quigley set to work in 1943, eventually covering the walls of their new home with rocks, fossils and crystals, even arrowheads. Billed as the "Ozarks strangest dwelling," it became one of Eureka Springs' mainstay tourist attractions.
• The state Capitol in Little Rock. The building's exterior is limestone, and the bases of columns are from blocks of syenite. These kinds of stone represent the state's "natural resource heritage," according to the Arkansas Geological Survey. The interior marble was imported from Alabama, Colorado and Vermont.
-- Ron Wolfe
HomeStyle on 05/28/2016