Stonehaven is a former community in the Town of Belgium,

Ozaukee County Ozaukee County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,503. Its county seat is Port Washington, making it one of three Wisconsin counties on Lake Michigan not to have a county seat with the same ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, United States. From 1901 until 1925, the community was a

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

of the Lake Shore Stone Company, which operated a 25-acre

dolomite Dolomite may refer to: *Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral *Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock *Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community *Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...

quarry in the area near the western shore of

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. The land is now the site of

Harrington Beach State Park Harrington Beach State Park is a Wisconsin state park on the shore of Lake Michigan in the Town of Belgium. In addition to a mile-long beach, the park contains a white cedar swamp surrounding a lake that used to be a stone quarry. The park pro ...

History

In the 1890s, Milwaukee businessman David Whittaker founded the Northwestern Stone Company to begin quarrying dolomite in the Town of Belgium, along the Lake Michigan shore. Whittaker's company failed and the Lake Shore Stone Company purchased the quarry in 1901. At the company's height, quarrying operations spanned 25 acres and employed as many as 150 labors each day, using dynamite to break up the stone, load it into carts, and take it to a

crusher A crusher is a machine designed to reduce large rocks into smaller rocks, gravel, sand or rock dust. Crushers may be used to reduce the size, or change the form, of waste materials so they can be more easily disposed of or recycled, or to reduce ...

. The

crushed stone Crushed stone or angular rock is a form of construction aggregate, typically produced by mining a suitable rock deposit and breaking the removed rock down to the desired size using crushers. It is distinct from naturally occurring gravel, which i ...

was then taken to a pier on Lake Michigan where it was shipped around the region to be used for road construction. The Lake Shore Stone Company developed Stonehaven as a company town so its employees could live near the quarry. Most of the workers were immigrants from

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, the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

, and Italy. Families lived in 15 by 24 foot cottages, while unmarried men lived in two dormitories. The company also operated a store where workers could redeem tokens for goods. In the 1920s, gravel began to replace crushed stone for road construction, and the Lake Shore Stone Company dissolved in 1925. The quarry closed and some of the houses in Stonehaven were moved three miles west to the Village of Belgium. In 1968, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources began buying properties at the Stonehaven site, and in 1992 the land became the 715-acre

. The quarry has flooded and is now a lake. The foundations of some of the Stonehaven buildings are preserved in the park.

References

{{Ozaukee County, Wisconsin Company towns in Wisconsin Ghost towns in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin Ghost towns in Wisconsin Luxembourgian-American culture in Wisconsin Populated places established in 1901 Populated places disestablished in 1925 Quarries in Wisconsin 1901 establishments in Wisconsin 1925 disestablishments in Wisconsin