Cobblestone - Use in Architecture

Use in Architecture

In the Finger Lakes Region of New York State, the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age left numerous small, rounded cobblestones available for building. Pre-Civil War architecture in the region made heavy use of cobblestones for walls. Today, the fewer than 600 remaining cobblestone buildings are prized as historic locations, most of them private homes. They are clustered south of Lake Ontario, between Buffalo and Syracuse. There is also a cluster of cobblestone buildings in the Town of Paris, Ontario. In addition to homes, cobblestones were used to build barns, stagecoach taverns, smokehouses, stores, churches, schools, factories, and cemetery markers. The history of building with cobblestones and 17 driving tours to see the remaining structures are found in "Cobblestone Quest - Road Tours of New York's Historic Buildings".

The only public cobblestone building is the Alexander Classical School, located in Alexander, New York.