Masonry Magazine June 1974 Page. 14
Arkansas Recognizes Legendary Stonemason's Craftmanship
With chisel and hammer in hand, a young man hung from a rope over the northeast gable of the state capitol building and carved his name in a piece of stone. The signature was of Eurnie Morgan, stonemason. He signed his name to his work just as if he were the author of a book. That was 40 years ago in Little Rock, Arkansas. Recently a crew working on the stone replacement and reconditioning at the state capitol, under the direction of Secretary of State Kelly Bryant, found Eurnie's name and the date 1934 carved in an ashlar stone high above.
Eurnie Morgan, stonemason par excellence, stands next to his signature that he carved in the face of the northeast gable of the Arkansas state capitol some 40 years ago. It was decided to try and locate the man whom his peers had known as one of the best stonemasons ever to work a job.
Don F. Goots, business representative of Bricklayers Local No. 1, went in search of Eurnie. He was found in Little Rock living at 5221 West 34th. Eurnie was brought to the capitol where he was ascended upon by contractors and workmen. Secretary of State Kelly Bryant also came out to shake Eurnie's hand and hear the story of a craftsman.
Born almost 70 years ago in Gleeson, Tenn., Eurnie began as a boy to learn his lifelong trade from his father, a stonemason. When Eurnie was about 18 he started working with his father in Memphis where there was plenty of stone work available. At the age of 19 Eurnie Morgan could lay brick with the best.
In 1921 Eurnie and his family moved to Little Rock, and by the age of 30 his reputation as a craftsman of stone work was well known. Knowing Eurnie's reputation as a fine stonemason caused W. E. Clark, who had just received the contract for reconditioning the stone on the upper portion of the capitol building, to hire Eurnie for a rather ticklish job, refacing the capitol dome.
That was in 1934, and in those days a common mode of transportation was trains, pulled by steam engines that belched a horrible black soot. With the train tracks sitting just a few blocks away from the capitol, the dome became a ready target for all the soot that puffed from those engine stacks. Over the years the soot had built up on the dome, giving it a dirty black cover. There were no sandblasters available then, so in order to reface something it had to be done with hammer and chisel.
Eurnie had done refacing jobs before, but never one as big and dangerous as the capitol dome. His first concern was how to get up there and stay there. After some thought he arrived at a practical and ingenious method of working safely at that height and on the rounded surface of the dome. He constructed a ladder that would conform to the curved surface of the dome and added sections to the ladder the further down the side of the dome he went. The ladder was attached to the top of the dome. Eurnie was on the other end with a rope tied around him and the ladder.
"Wind was a constant problem. Sometimes it was so strong it would almost lift me and the ladder off the face of the dome, and chips of limestone would fly into your face and eyes," Eurnie recalls. "There was another problem. When we started the job I had a helper chipping with me. We were to take only about a quarter of an inch off the surface all the way around the dome, but he kept knocking big chunks off. He lasted only three days. I don't think he much liked it up there anyway."
So Eurnie refaced the entire dome by himself, and it took quite awhile. He finished four months from the day he started, and on that day Eurnie hung over the side of the northeast gable and wrote his signature, as well he deserved.
"That old building is probably the best constructed one in the state," he says. "It had to be or it would have fallen in long ago, with so much heavy stone in it. That's good limestone too. It came from up at Batesville. Batesville limestone is better than other limestone. It isn't as porous and it stands the weather better.
"I've worked on the capitol three different times, in 1934, '38 and '42. Those days we didn't have all the modern equipment they have today. We had to use an 'A' frame and a winch to lift heavy stone. That limestone
Eurnie Morgan (2nd from right) is pictured with some of his friends who were on hand to congratulate the legendary stonemason in Little Rock, Ark. Shown (left to right) are: Don Goots, business agent for BM&PIU Local 1 of Arkansas; Lindy Sosebee, masonry foreman for W. E. Clark & Sons, Inc. (MCAA); Kelly Bryant, Arkansas Secretary of State, and Gene Davenport of the architectural firm of Bruce Anderson & Associates in Little Rock.
weighs 108 pounds per cubic foot, and some of the big pieces weighed as much as four tons. With that much weight we'd have to have an 'A' frame with a gin pole and lift the stone with a team of mules. They used that method when they built the capitol, not in '34. When you're lifting stone, that is the time to be careful. Once it starts falling nothing will stop it. I've seen stone go (Continued on page 32)