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Stacks of hand-hewn sandstone grindstones are unusual to come upon in the woods but here they are on the Acadia Cliffs state nature preserve in Washington county Ohio, just above the Athens county line. These appear to be remnants of a once thriving sandstone quarrying industry in this area from the late 1800's until the early 1900's. That industry dried up when manufactured abrasive wheels replaced natural sandstone.
Even though the site is within a quarter mile of a road it is little visited. There are no signs. No developed trails. Only an overgrown access road and a few brushy footpaths leading from an obscure parking area up the hill.
There is actually a book documenenting the grindstone industry in Southeastern Ohio and nearby West Virginia: Grindstone Country, by W. B. Bond, (1979). It is available in the special collections archives of the Ohio University Alden library (TJ1280.B6x).
