Case file · Sacred site
Pipestone quarries
For some 3,000 years Plains peoples have quarried the soft red pipestone (catlinite) of south-western Minnesota to carve sacred pipes; in 1937 the quarries became a national monument where quarrying is reserved for Native Americans.
1937 CE · 44.01, -96.33 · status: official
The account
Lakota and other traditions tell that the stone is the flesh and blood of ancestors, and George Catlin, who visited in 1836, gave the mineral its scientific name.