Hokie Stone
By Erik Wiker
Blacksburg residents and Virginia Tech students know the famous stone buildings around tech as
“Hokie Stone”. But what they don’t know is why it was used, where it comes from, what it is, and why is
it so important.
Now anyone who has even just taken a tour of Virginia Tech knows that the architecture is
unrivaled and beautiful in itself. It sort of “defines” campus (Hokie Stone 1). Many people have taken to
know it as the campus that looks like “Harry Potter”. But that’s the extent of common knowledge.
Hokie Stone is limestone that encases most the buildings on campus, including every building
surrounding the drill field (Hokie Stone 1). But what is the reason behind using limestone and not the
traditional brick used on the preliminary buildings on site? Well the university “was born as a land-grant
college, and appropriately, its distinctive buildings have been constructed from the product of
Southwest Virginia geology… [The limestone] is extracted and shaped by ancient methods by humans
rather than machines” (Hokie Stone 1). The beginning buildings were Victorian style built with brick and
“resembled ‘poverty-stricken mills’ so the fifth president Eggleston made sure that ‘bricks were out and
limestone blocks were in’” (Hokie Stone 2). The very first building that was limestone on campus was
the YMCA in 1899, which is now presently the Performance Arts structure (Hokie Stone 2). But that was
in Romanesque style (Hokie Stone 3). In 1905 the neo-gothic architecture finally made an entrance with
the building of the chapel (Kinnear 159). Due to the inaccessibility of brick, they used limestone as an
auxiliary “for what is now the library” (Hokie Stone 3). The first actual designed building to be neo-gothic
with Hokie Stone was the old McBryde Hall built in 1914 (Hokie Stone 3). “Presidents McBryde and
Eggleston adopted the motif of new-gothic to visually underscore their desire for the still-young college
in Blacksburg to be accepted as a full-fledged institution of higher learning” (Hokie Stone 3).
The first phase of the changes to campus architecture was “ignited” by Eggleston- since then,
the “set-in-stone vision endured”, aside from a few years, and the vision started a nationwide style
(Hokie Stone 3). Cassell Coliseum is a prime example of a building from this time (Hokie Stone 4). From
then on, “the traditions of more than a century are deeply etched in the stone of Virginia Tech’s
buildings. The rock’s warm grays and browns enhance structures that memorialize individuals who have
made substantial contributions to the University’s rich heritage” (The Virginia Tech Foundation 1-8).
“To many, the stone buildings are tech” but in 1980 there was much speculation that “down the
road” the stone would be too expensive and rare to work with and it would have to be discontinued
(Downey-Laskowitz NRV-4). This was around the time of the construction of the six-story Newman
Library, but many people involved argued it was just as costly as any other material and there was
plenty of stone still in the quarry for years to come (Downey-Laskowitz NRV-4).
Eventually the board of visitors met and passed a resolve to safeguard the tradition of Hokie
Stone and continue to create every building in that manner from then on out (Hokie Stone 4). Not only
did limestone have to be used on the future buildings, but it also had to be native limestone all from the
same quarry (Hokie Stone 4-6). Due to this, McComas Hall was scaled back from its original giant size
just so the building could be 100% “clad” in Hokie Stone (Hokie Stone 4). The largest structure made
from Hokie Stone is the Inn at Virginia Tech (Hokie Stone 4).
The map of VT changed dramatically from 1989 to 1999, where between those years over a
dozen building projects were completed. Even as Tech grows, it keeps open routes to all buildings and
the neo-gothic architecture style (Moody 6). McComas, Fralin Biotechnology, Burchard Hall, and the
new engineering building were all built during this significant change to campus (Moody 7).
Since so much of Virginia Tech is shelled by Hokie Stone, it is important to understand exactly
what it is. According to Hokie Stone:
Hokie Stone is dolomite, a mineral found in the Appalachian Mountains and most
prevalent in VA, Tennessee, and Alabama. [Being] A sedimentary rock, it formed from
calcium and magnesium carbonate and occurs in muted shades of pink, red, gray,
brown, and black. In the timeline of geology, dolomite formed at the same time as fish,
insects, and reptiles, making it somewhat of a geological newcomer. The formation of
this limestone (aka Chapultepec and Kingsport dolomite) was an earth-shaking event.
Continental drift forced the coastal planes of Africa and North America to collide,
creating wrinkled layers of faults and folds. As these layers were pushed near the earth’s
surface, they formed the stone that distinguishes VT today. (5)
So Hokie Stone is sort of a reflection of history, giving it another whole importance.
The college gets all of the stone from VT’s personal quarry that produces 55 tons a week; to put
this in perspective “a single ton of the stone will cover about 35 square feet on a building” (Hokie Stone
6). Still not envisioning it? Well Torgersen Hall, including the bridge that connects it to the Newman
library, needed 2,700 tons to complete it. Each mason can produce about a ton of this stone a day,
including “cutting, dressing, and packing the stone” (Hokie Stone 6). The use of black powder is taken
advantage of to “blast Hokie Stone from its mother formation” and masons try to conceal the noise and
dust from local residents nearby to keep our loyalty to the community. One exception to the locality rule
is that 20% of the stone is purchased from a farm in Montgomery County to ensure color variety (Hokie
Stone 6). “Slabs of stone are hewn from Montgomery County hillsides, cut into manageable pieces,
chipped into blocks and taken to Virginia Tech” (Downey-Laskowitz NRV-4)
Large pieces from the quarry are resized with machines and tools to create consistent sized
stone, using an extremely complicated process used a cylindrical hydraulic splitting mechanism to
reduce them to a constant size. Afterwards they are shipped to job sites (Hokie Stone 7).
And Hokie Stone goes much further than just use on campus. They use it for the state’s highest
bridge for supporting pillars, the Northern Virginia memorial for the 2007 tragedy which consists of
Hokie Stone bench next to a Japanese tree, and even used as pieces of jewelry (Hokie Stone 7).
So whether or not the millions of bystanders realize it, the stone alone that shields and
constitutes many of the surrounding building at tech are extremely substantial and important to not just
the university but the community of Blacksburg as well. It is vital for one who is involved at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute— whether it is a local store owner, teacher, or student—to appreciate the
significance of this stone and recognize that when most see this stone, it reminds them of home.
Work Cited
Downey-Laskowitz, Cheryl. "Carved in Stone." Roanoke Times & World-New [Roanoke] 28 Sep 1980,
NRV-4. Print.
Hokie Stone: Virginia Tech’s Stone of Tradition. Blacksburg, VA: University Relations, 2008, Special
Collections.
Kinnear, Duncan. 100 Years: A History of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Blacksburg,
Virginia: Virginia Polytechnic Institute Educational Foundation, Inc., 1972. 159. Print.
Moody, Christian. "A New Crop of Hokie Stone." Virginia Tech Magazine. Spring 1999: 6-8. Print.
The Virginia Tech Foundation, . The Stone of Tradition. Blacksburg, Virginia: Virginia Tech Foundation, No
Date. 1-8. Print.
(All sources found through Special Collections directly)
Writing Response Journal
This assignment was very interesting to do because of the special collections. I had difficulties first
focusing on a topic about Blacksburg. It took a while for me to figure out something I was actually
interested in that I could easily research using the archives. After finally finding a topic worth
researching, the archives was extremely useful... well to the fact that one source I found was all I
needed. But since the 5 required sources forced me to discover more, I couldn’t find ones that were very
useful that I didn’t already cover with the first source. Also I had trouble figuring out the parentheticals
for particular sources and general siting of sources which had such limited information about that
particular source. The special collections people were very helpful though and I didn’t have to much
trouble writing this all together. I enjoyed the writing workshop and my partner very much because we
got along very well and she helped me with my paper an extensive amount, to a point where I am
extremely happy about and excited to submit. I think that was a good idea to have the workshop and
another week to fix the paper so all the pressure wasn’t put on one due date. It definitely was less
stressful. I am actually not as stressed about writing in this class because of the way we focus on one
thing at a time and it’s a little more broad and independent.