Ithaca Trip Infrastructure Dorkery

Yes, more infrastructure dorkery, from the highway on the road trip to and from Ithaca. On I-88, between Albany and Binghamton, near Exit 22, I have noticed some large mine and industrial works off the highway. The picture below doesn't do it justice--it seems like they've basically carved out a hole in the side of a small mountain.


I've been curious what this was for a while, and I finally got around to researching it on this trip. It turns out that it is an abandoned limestone mine--to make cement (the active ingredient in concrete), you basically take limestone, grind it up, and bake it really hot (Wikipedia description here). That step pretty much is the "activation energy" to create a product that has the magical property that you mix with water to form new rocks.

A few aerial shots from Google Maps:


I-88 at the bottom of the first shot. Yeah, it's really annoying to drive to the part of the map where the world goes a lot more fuzzy and low-resolution.


Apparently, there were plans to renovate it into a museum or something, according to this 2003 article:

Renovation work is commencing on the historic Howe's Cave limestone quarry and the surrounding community of Schoharie County, New York. The centerpiece of the project is Cave House, built in 1865. Once a hotel that was said to rival the finest Catskills' resorts, Cave House later housed the offices, from the 1880s until the about three decades ago, of Howe's Cave Lime & Cement, Helderberg Cement, North American Cement, and Nazareth, Pa.-based Penn-Dixie Cement.

Currently, the facility is being re-created as the Cave House Museum of Mining and Geology, with work expected to take four to five years. The facility also will serve as a visitors center and include classrooms for guest lecturers, exhibits and artifacts.

However, as far as I can tell, this museum doesn't exist on the internet... so it probably doesn't exist. Ah well. Howe's Cave, however, is a tourist attraction.