Lyons sandstone:  Boulder County, Colorado.  The typical red Lyons Sandstone has traditionally been used as flat-lying flagstones in sidewalks and as thick slabs for curbs.  Thick beds of this stone break naturally along bedding planes, perfect for flagstones up to six inches thick. 

Lyons sandstone formed as extensive sand dune fields in the Permian Period, deposited after uplift and subsequent erosion of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains.  Some layers of sandstone contain fossil animal tracks.  In addition to its architectural use, Lyons Sandstone is an important petroleum reservoir rock in the subsurface.  Large areas of gently dipping sandstone are exposed in hogbacks, especially in the Lyons area, where the stone industry has long been an important part of the local community.  Vast quantities of stone have been removed over the past 125 years, much of it sent to cities in the East.  Most of the buildings on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder are made of Lyons Sandstone from this area.

Larimer County, Colorado.  Historic buildings constructed of brown Lyons Sandstone are unusual because few quarries produced blocks of this color more than a few inches thick.  Most of the brown sandstone from the hogbacks west of Loveland and Fort Collins occurred in thin-bedded slabs that were perfect for windowsills, lintels, mantels, steps and flagstones.  Demand for this material was great, and large amounts were quarried.  West of Fort Collins, at Stout, quarries were operated by the Union Pacific Railroad and stone was shipped east in the late 1800s. 

Manitou sandstone:  El Paso County, Colorado.  Lyons Sandstone quarries that supplied a distinct red-orange stone for Denver buildings are located in Red Rock Canyon at the south end of Garden of the Gods.  The building trade name is “Manitou sandstone”.  This material was deposited during the Permian Period.  These quarries, which date back to the 1870s, were known at one time as the Kenmuir quarries.  A railroad track was extended into Red Rock Canyon early in the 1880s.  After the arrival of large derricks and installation of heavy equipment, great quantities of stone were removed by several companies.  The quarries later became known as the Greenlee and Snider quarries.  Newspapers reported that large amounts of stone were shipped by train to major cities.  Occasionally this stone was mentioned in The Western Architect and Building News as being used in Denver buildings.

The Manitou sandstone quarry site lies in a 176-foot sandstone ledge at 220 feet above the Fountain Formation.  Because this stone occurs in a thick ledge, it was possible to supply large blocks of dimension stone for the thick stone walls of buildings that were required prior to steel beam construction.  This sandstone is characterized by its quartz and feldspar composition, medium-grained texture, and cross-stratified structures. It is prone to weathering and erosion. 

Peachblow sandstone:  Eagle County, Colorado.  Upon close inspection, one will find a distinctive reddish quartz sandstone.  It is thought to be named after an early American glassware of a unique peach color.  This sandstone is from a little-known quarry at mile 11 on the Fryingpan River east of Basalt.  This long-abandoned site was adjacent to the tracks of the Midland Railroad, which ran from Manitou Springs to Aspen in the late 1880s.  The stone is used mostly in historic buildings in Glenwood Springs and Aspen, and have been identified in buildings in Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs.  It is reported to have been exported to eastern cities as well.

Peachblow sandstone is documented in the architects’ specifications for the Sheedy Mansion.  This has helped establish its identity and use in Denver buildings, although it is used mostly for steps, not as a dimension stone.  This sandstone is from the Permian Period.  It is characterized by its hardness, by its even and repetitious stratifications, and by the many, small, iron-stained spots throughout the stone.  The little spots often stand out, forming tiny brown bumps on the rock.

Pikes Peak granite:  Douglas County, Colorado.  Dated at 1,080 million years old, it is seen in many downtown Denver buildings and in the porch columns and steps of the Sheedy Mansion.  The source of this attractive pink granite, the Seerie Brothers quarry, is on a hillside above the old Denver, South Park, and Pacific Railroad siding at Argyle, in the South Platte Canyon between Foxton and Buffalo. 

South Beaver Creek granite:  Gunnison County, Colorado.  This granite, one of the oldest native granites at 1,720 million years old, comes from the Aberdeen quarry in the South Beaver Creek area south of Gunnison.  It is dark gray in color.

Yule marble: Yule Creek, Colorado.  Colorado’s famous Yule marble is found in several downtown buildings; however, no known mansions in Denver are made of marble.  Instead, marble is often used as an interior decorative stone, especially in fireplaces.  The geology of the marble deposit, a belt of altered Mississippian Leadville Limestone, is related to Tertiary deposits in the Elk Mountains in Gunnison County.