MANSFIELD — The two large sandstone pillar formations at the entrance to North Lake Park have stood a silent, largely undisturbed vigil for more than a century.
That changed Thursday afternoon when a car crashed into the pillar on the west side of the West Fourth Street entrance to the historic park, which opened in 1887 as Sherman-Heineman Park.
The accident, which happened during a shooting incident inside a car, caused the vehicle to smash into the sandstone formation, which City of Mansfield engineer Bob Bianchi said was 126 years old.
Some of the heavy stones were smashed and broken and others simply dislodged.
“Those sandstone pillars are historic,” Bianchi said Friday. “It’s important that we restore them as best we can to make it look like the original.”
He said the city is already reaching out to contractors who specialize in the kind of restoration such an effort will take.
“Mansfield is known for its sandstone and we will do the best we can to find and match the color of the stone and the mortar,” Bianchi said.
Ironically, Bianchi went to the park entrance on Thursday afternoon on a different issue, not knowing the entrance had been damaged until he arrived.
“We are thinking about the dry dam project (which would be constructed in the park).
“We went there thinking about the access roads into the park for what will be many loads of dirt, including that entrance and those pillars, and how we could protect it during that construction period,” he said.
Bianchi said the good news is the pillar’s foundation was not damaged and that sandstone blocks damaged or missing will simply need to be replaced.
(The above video story by historian Tim McKee takes a look back at the long and storied history of what is now known as North Lake Park.)
Pink sandstone has been synonymous with Mansfield and Richland County dating to the 19th century. In fact, it makes up a significant portion of the county’s bedrock.
According to a 2015 story published in Richland Source by historian Tim McKee, “The City of Mansfield, Ohio, sits on earth made of a pink sandstone considered so amazing in the 1880s that it was quarried and shipped all over the world. This is the story of the stone, the quarry and a world famous building created to be pink.”
A story found on RichlandCountyHistory.com on “The Seven Hills of Mansfield” references Quarry Hill, a sandstone quarry that delivered stone for “a considerable number of homes, foundations, businesses and public structures of the 19th century in Richland County (that) were built from this ancient sandstone mound carved by glaciers.”
“The quarry went by different names through the decades according to who owned it at the time, but its unique pink sandstone became known around the nation and identified with Mansfield,” according to the article, also written by McKee.
Quarry Hill today is bisected by U.S. 30 so that its rich heart of pink sandstone is on display to anyone traversing the city’s eastern portal.
A considerable number of homes, foundations, businesses and public structures of the 19th century in Richland County were built from this ancient sandstone mound carved by glaciers.
