Sense of Place: Freestone named after nearby public quarry

The community of Freestone is about halfway between Sebastopol and Bodega, near the intersection of the Bohemian and Bodega highways. Originally settled in the mid-19th century, its name was inspired by a nearby quarry.

The term “freestone” can refer to any fine-grained rock, such as sandstone or limestone, that can be easily quarried and worked without breaking or splitting.

An 1861 article in the Sonoma County Journal mentions several men working the “Freestone quarry … and it is their intention to commence shipping to the City as soon as the roads are passable for teams. They have a large amount quarried and some of the blocks are truly beautiful. When finished the stone looks very much like Italian marble.”

One source says the Freestone quarry was public, the rock available to anyone willing to invest their labor. No cash required. If that’s true, then the name carried a double meaning - serving to advertise the lowest price around, a place you could get “Free Stone.” Unfortunately, as is often the case, you get what you pay for.

While the price was right, the rock was found to be too soft for constructing buildings. After being laboriously shipped to the City, it was deemed suitable only for fireplaces.

Once the initial excitement died down, the quarry was used only in a “desultory way to supply the spasmodic local demand,” according to a state geological report. By the 1890s, “the quarry had not been operated for years” and never did revive. You could say it had reached “rock bottom.”

The freestone, or free stone, at Freestone is part of the Wilson Grove Formation, a fine-grained, quartz sandstone that began forming in a shallow coastal bay about 3 to 6 million years ago. Fossilized clam shells within this geological layer point to its marine origin. Visiting Freestone in those days would have required a boat.

To the east you would have seen numerous cones and fissures spewing dark lava and thick piles of white volcanic ash over Santa Rosa, Sonoma Valley and Sonoma Mountain - creating a separate layer that geologists call the Sonoma Volcanics.

Many towns are named for a prominent person or important feature in the local landscape. Freestone seems to be an exception - its namesake quarry never lived up to its early promise.

Once the North Pacific Coast Railroad arrived in the 1870s, the local economy turned to goods for which there was solid demand, such as lumber, dairy and agricultural products. Today, it centers around tourism.

It was a vastly different world when Freestone’s rocks began forming millions of years ago. But without that world, Sonoma County’s modern economy also would be vastly different.

Vines planted in the soils of the Wilson Grove Formation and the Sonoma Volcanics produce some of our highest quality grapes - they are close to perfectly balanced in the nutrients wine grapes require.

Today no one goes to Freestone for rocks, free or otherwise. But the land on top of those rocks is a whole other story.