Platteville Limestone formed between 488 and 436 million years ago, when what became southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Wisconsin lay beneath an ancient sea.

[3] It is shot through with dolomitic mottles in an anastomose pattern; this dolotimization occurred after deposition but prior to the development of joints in the rock.

When they finally melted, between 14,000 and 12,000 years ago, the released water carved the channels of the Mississippi, Minnesota, and smaller rivers through the layers of limestone, exposing some of it.

Sea life was abundant during the Ordovician Period and a large number of marine fossils including corals, bryozoans, brachiopods, clams, snails, cephalopods, and trilobites can be found in the limestone sediments at several areas along the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities.

The Original Coney Island (1858), the Alexander Ramsey House (1868), and Church of the Assumption (1874) were all built partly or entirely from the local stone.

Outside of the Twin Cities, Carleton College's first permanent building, Willis Hall (1872), was built of Platteville stone quarried at Dundas, Minnesota.

As a building stone, Platteville's chief attraction was its availability; in Saint Paul and Minneapolis it was often simply quarried on site.

With the spread of railroads in the 1870s, other, finer materials became available and affordable, including the red Lake Superior Sandstone and the buff-colored Kasota limestone that were more attractive and easier to work with.