Lime was used to help construct the stone Hans Herr House and to bolster agricultural production in the fertile area surrounding it. “Limestone was the key,” Miller writes.

In the Elkhorn Mountains, hot kilns at the Graymont Indian Creek mine run 24 hours a day, seven days a week turning limestone into lime, a product with countless uses.

Cody Goswick parks his rig next to a 50 foot high pile of pulverized limestone. After a bucket loader dumps two scoops into ...