The small town of Oolitic, just north of Bedford, takes its name from the oolitic limestone that built it. It is barely more than a few streets, but it is worth a brief stop for the bronze statue of "Joe Palooka" — the comic-strip prize-fighter — that stands on the main intersection, carved in limestone in 1948 by the Indiana Stone Workers' Union.
The town is a useful reminder that the limestone industry was a community as much as a business: whole settlements grew up around individual mills and quarries, with their own schools, churches, and union halls. Many of those quarries are now silent, full of clear green water, and best admired from a respectful distance.