The Fencepost limestone is unique for its contribution to the cultural landscape of Kansas,[8] appearing as miles of stone fence posts lining austere fields and pastures.

The drier climate coupled with the grazing habits of buffalo and the prairie burning practices of Plains Indians[9] meant that the first European settlers to the region did not have enough local timber for construction and fencing.

Reporting on the "Fence-Post Horizon" in 1897, W. N. Logan noted fifty thousand stone posts in Mitchell and Lincoln counties alone.

[7]On the early open ranges of the Kansas frontier, typically, the burden was on the farmers to protect their crops from free-range and driven cattle.

[14] Common practice of earlier frontier farmers in the East and the in Old Northwest Territory was to use the timber cleared from the new fields for split-rail fencing.

Owing to the intensive grazing of millions of buffalo, as well as to the particular land management of the 19th century Plains Indians, the small amount of timber that was available was confined to river banks.

However, in several counties in central Kansas, where most of the rock was soft shale or chalk, a practical alternative was available; one particular bed of stone had ideal properties to substitute for wood fenceposts.

[15] The relative ease of forming durable stone posts from Fencepost limestone is not to be neglected in the context of a treeless frontier farming economy.

[16] Fresh exposed slabs are soft and easy to work; the stone hardens only after removal from the shale and drying out in the open air.

Currently, the Permian top-ledge Cottonwood Limestone is commercially split and shaped to superficially resemble the Kansas Stone Posts.

[20] Traditionally, these posts were manufactured in-place by drilling lines of holes directly into the freshly exposed, soft limestone bed (only about halfway through).

A regional construction material, Fencepost limestone appears yellowish to buff with orange to brown tinted streaking, sometimes weathering to nearly white in color when openly exposed for many decades.

Its resistance to erosion compared to the overlying Carlile Shale results in it forming broad bluffs or plateaus; so, it is abundant and relatively easy to quarry.

[15] An example of this is the First United Methodist Church of Hays built in 1949; here the Fencepost limestone[27] was cut into slabs and set vertically; and its index fossil, Collignoniceras woollgari, is displayed in well-preserved cross sections in a few places.

[35] More recent Pete Felten sculptures, Train Hwy (1995) and Pteranodon (2000),[36] demonstrate use of the tones of the Post Rock, which locally can have outer brown layers with a lighter inner core.

The multi-tone effect is also seen in Stone Post slab sculptures displayed at the Fossil Station Convenience Store at Russell, adjacent to exit 184 of I-70.

One bas-relief carving is of a Buffalo, the shallow cut into the blackened layer meant to suggest the dark hide of the bison.

The Fencepost shows a unique "double-peak" or "prolonged kick" in electric well logs, and can be used to locate reserve formations in several states north and west of Kansas.

Consequently, the Fencepost bed has been used as a datum (a fixed reference point) in charting subterranean sections of rock lying under the High Plains.

The exposed stone often weathers out a parting seam, also seen in the collage, used split the limestone into thinner slabs for flagging.

The regional reputation of the Fencepost limestone bed belies its physical size and relative rank in the rock layers associated with the lower Colorado Group.

[47] These layers are interpreted as representing the maximal extent and depth of the Greenhorn cycle of the Western Interior Seaway, with the Fencepost practically marking the central event.

[41] This was a place and time of open seas with little direct sedimentary or nutrient influence from land, although petrified sunken driftwood is not extremely rare within the Fencepost.

Consequently, the floor itself was frequently covered with mollusks, especially species of Inoceramus, ranging in size from few millimeters to well over a meter, themselves encrusted with oysters.

The most easily spotted fossil is the Inoceramus (Mytiloides) labiatus (Schlotheim), including a broad/flat form subpopulation that appears in the vicinity of the Fencepost.

Other common Fencepost fossils include Inoceramus cuvieri Sowerby, Collignoniceras woollgari, Baculites yokoyamai Tokunaga and Shizimu, and Pseudoperna bentonensis (Ostrea congesta var.

[67][68] The stone posts are seen in the countryside some 20 miles (32 km) west of Salina as this highway enters the scenic Dakota Escarpment, now topped by the Smoky Hills Wind Project.

From Wilson, the highway rises to the Fencepost outcrops, then drops down into the colorful Dakota Hills south of the lake.

However, south of Hays, the highway passes the small Post Rock communities of Schoenchen, Liebenthal, and La Crosse.

A resistant marker bed of the Fairport Chalk (F-3) is seen a short distance up the hill, and from the erosion of the shale, this limestone seems to have drawn a lot of attention in the years since this section of U.S. 183 was widened in 1966.