Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1899-04-23
FAMOUS QUARRIEs.
THOSE OF RED PIPEsToNE WERE
SUNG OF I'm HlAWATHA.

f0QN0 Vt 1T FltAfNAi flHs
No One But the Indians Are Allowed to
Work It-Dificultios Encountered When
the Government Tried to Buy the Reser-
yation-How the Stone Was Named.
Less than a mile from the busting
little city of Pipestone, Mimi, are
three freaks of nature that will we'll
repay visit from the lovers of the
curious and the beautiful. The first is
waterfall, or cataract, which when
the stream that feeds it is swollen by
melting snow and spring rains is a
miniature Niagara, and in point of
beauty rivals many of the famed
waterfalls of the East. The second is
the famous Red Pipestone Quarry, the
scene of the opening of Longfellow's
beautiful poem "Hiawatha," and the
third is a group of immense rocks
also spoken of in "Hiawatha' as the
Three Maidens-that have stood for
ages as a landmark to guide the Indi-
ans to the only spot in the known
world where the sacred pipestone
could be found.
The waterfall, quarry and Three
Maidens are all located on the Indian
Reservation, Which is one mile square,
adjoining the corporation of Pipestone
on the north The reservation belongs
to the Dacotas, or what is better
known by it's French name as the 81
ouX Nation, but it is claimed by the
Yankton Sioux. Several years since
determined effort was made by a COM
mittee of citizens of Pipestone to par
chase it, as they did not want so large
a tract of land so near this city lying
idle, but the Indians would not part
with it for love or money. The next
best thing to do was TO see If some
thing could not be done with it, even
if it remained in the Indians posses
sion. An application was made to Con
gress, an appropriation of $4,000 was
obtained, and a substantial school
building was built on one corner of
the land. The school has proved so
successful that a second building, the
size of the first, Is being built to ae-
eomm0date the eyer-increasing number
Of pupils.
The poem Of 'Hiawatha" begins:
On the mountains of the prairie,
On the great Red Pipestone quarries,
and any one unacquainted with the
neigbborhood would Naturally suppose
tliste 1t WIS ittltJ IL Ht3 llit IedSl. Ou
the contrary, the country is quite level,
there not being even what in Eastern
parlance would be called a"small hill"
in the neighbefho0d The quarry lies
in about the centre of the bed OF what
is apparently a prehistoric lake, aBd
when first discovered the stone crop
ped out Of the surface, but the eontin-
ual quarrying for ages has extended
the quarry about sixty rods toward tie
south. and it is how necessary TO re-
move from six t. eight feet Of scale
an dirt before the pure stone is
reached
No one but the Indians are allowed
to quarry it, and every summer they
come in squads from distant reserva-
tons to get supplies Of the stone with
which to make pipes, knicknacks and
ornaments that they carve out Of it,
both for theiroWn use and for sale and
trade to the white man. They also
frequently sell the stone in the rough
to tie white men, who. with turning
lathe, can work it up much better than
they can.
The stone is known to the scientific
world as catlinite being SO called in
honor of Catiin, the celebrated histori-
an of the Indians, who was the first
White man to set eyes on the quarry,
while gathering material for his Hist
cry Of the Indians of the Northwest"
in 1886.