Pictured above is a proud Master Mason, Chris Hannaway, with his charges. With Chris are Timothy Smith, Linda Peer, James Jamerson, Jose Tapia and Manny Alvarado. The first five apprentices are with the first five stones for the Southwest Tower. These stones are all destined for the “A” zone of the tower on the Western face. Their numbers represent where they will go based on the construction drawings.
The four-sided tower known as the Southwest Tower or the Tower of St. Paul would contain over 12,000 stones. For organization and control purposes there were 11 zones and a pinnacle. The “A”, or first zone is fourteen feet high. It starts at elevation 239’3″ and ends at elevation 253’9″. On the construction drawing there are the dimensions and a discreet number for each stone. These first five stones are from the A zone, Western elevation so the number WA25 would tell the setters, exactly where that stone would go. These stones were cut before the administrative systems were complete, so job tickets which were later used were not the routine. The apprentices cut them in a training environment. A recreation of the job ticket for stone WA25 is below.
The Job Ticket
It is likely that Jim Bambridge was doing all the setting out work at this time. He would have assigned the first five stones for the Southwest Tower based on the fact that they were ashlars and fitted the availability of the raw stones in the stoneyard at the time. They were not sequential and these numbers are found scattered about the western elevation of the “A” zone.
- Special thanks to Jose Tapia, Stephen Boyle, and Pamela Morton for this information and photos.