The Griggsville Landing lime kiln was likely built in the mid-1850s near a landing where a steamboat stopped half a mile to the north to pick up produce and merchant goods, and where there were a warehouse, boat yard, hotel, and grist mill. Lime from the kiln was used in mortar to bind bricks or stones and to fill gaps between the logs of log buildings, and it was also an ingredient in plaster and whitewash. Hardwood logs were stacked in the base of the kiln, while pieces of limestone 6-8 inches in diameter, quarried from the bluff above, were dumped into the open top. Firing the kiln took about 72 hours and heated the limestone to 1,517 F (825 C), driving off carbon dioxide and reducing the rock to lumps of lime and powdered lime. After a 12-hour cooling period, the lime was raked out through the base opening and packaged in barrels. Lime production here ended soon after the Civil War as the industry became industrialized, and by 1872 county records show a blacksmith shop at the site.