Hokie Stone

Hokie Stone is a dolomite limestone named for the Hokie mascot. This stone is the primary finishing material on campus buildings. Hokie Stone was originally normal limestone, but under intense pressure and temperature, was infused with magnesium and water to alter its chemical composition. The color of Hokie Stone on campus varies due to its actual rock content. On older buildings at Virginia Tech, such as Holden Hall, the Hokie Stone is completely gray, a characteristic of pure Hokie Stone. Newer Hokie Stone is a multitude of colors due to impurities; it contains siltstone and sandstone, as well.

80% of the stone is quarried from a 40 acre University owned quarry a few miles from campus. 25-30 Virginia Tech employees use black powder each day to dislodge the stone into block sizes required by campus construction projects and finish the blocks by hand using hammers and chisels. The remaining 20% of stone is mined once per year from an additional quarry located on a local farm. The university-owned quarry has been in operation since the 1950's.

History

When the university was founded in 1872, buildings were simple brick constructions, reflecting the architecture of Blacksburg at that time. In 1901 the YMCA Building (now the Performing Arts Building) was the first to be constructed of Hokie Stone, in 1917 McBryde Hall introduced the Hokie Stone clad neo-gothic style which became the official architecture of the campus. During the 60's and 70's, concrete and brick structures absent of Hokie Stone such as Dietrick Hall and Cassell Coliseum were built. In 1983 the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors required that some Hokie Stone be incorporated into the construction of every new building on campus. Today each campus project uses an average of 1,500 tons of Hokie Stone, with each ton of stone covering only 30-35 square feet.

In additional to building exteriors, Hokie Stone is used in important monuments such as biographical markers outside each campus building providing a brief history of the person for whom the building is named. Thirty-two Hokie Stones were quarried by university stonemasons and engraved with the names of students and professors killed in the April 16 shootings. The Virginia Tech football team enters the playing field through a tunnel with an exit topped by a block of Hokie Stone which is touched by each player.