Coral Castle: Mystery of Magnetism

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Prices have increased since then,
but Ed first charged 10 cents to enter his attraction
starting in the 1920s // Pixabay

How can one man with a tiny stature (weighing only about 100 pounds) carve out over 1100 tons of stone into a castle? That is the puzzle of Edward Leedskalnin and his “Rock Gate Park,” now known as Coral Castle, located in Homestead, Florida. Since Coral Castle’s completion in 1951, questions on how Ed was able to construct it by himself have arisen, but the only answer he left was, “I understood the laws of weight and leverage well" and "I know the secrets of the people who build the pyramids.”

The Man Behind the Marvel

Ed was born August 10th, 1887 in Latvia, with little documentation of his childhood. It is said his education stopped at the fourth-grade, but despite this, he continued to spend his time reading. He also learned about sculpting and creating structures with stone by learning stonemasonry from his father.

When Ed was 26, he was scheduled to marry the love of his life, Agnes Skuvst. Ed referred to her as his “Sweet Sixteen” because she was ten years younger than he was. The day before the wedding, Agnes decided to call off the engagement, which left Ed heartbroken and devastated.

With this chip on his shoulder, Ed took up his belongings, left Latvia, and moved to North America. Ed arrived in New York City, but after struggling to find work, moved to Oregon because of the abundance of job opportunities there. He spent his time at Oregon working in lumber camps, developing a skill for handling basic tools like axes, pickaxes, ropes, etc.

After developing a case of tuberculosis, Ed was forced to move to warmer climates, and he decided to settle in Florida City, Florida in the 1920s. Shortly after his arrival, he started building some of the Coral Castle structures, but after some time, he bought 10 acres of land in Homestead, Florida.

This is where the mystery of Coral Castle begins, as nobody quite knows how he moved all the stone on his own. Homestead was about 10 miles from Florida City, how did Ed single-handedly move all the limestone that distance?

How Did Ed Construct It?

Coral Castle’s first stones were sculpted in Florida City during the 1920s, and after purchasing the 10 acres of land in Homestead, Ed hired a driver to move the pieces over to the new site during the 1930s. It is reported, however, that the driver was not allowed to help with the loading or unloading of the multi-ton carvings. The driver would leave his flatbed overnight and when he came back in the morning it was loaded and ready to go. He would drive to the new site at Homestead, leave the truck again and when he came back it was empty and ready for another load.

Ed worked in solitude and at night, with nobody else being there to record how exactly he performed this feat. The entirety of Coral Castle was to be dedicated to Ed’s lost “Sweet Sixteen,” as a testimony of his undying love for her. The whole process took over 20 years, with Coral Castle being completed in 1951, and Ed used over 1,100 tons (more than 2 million pounds) of oolite limestone for the project.

One of the most notable features of the castle is a revolving stone gate that is 8 feet tall and weighs over eight tons. The gate is carved so precisely that there is less than a quarter of an inch gap between the gate and the walls and it was so well-balanced that it was said that a child could open it with the push of a finger. This particular mystery, however, is one that has been solved in the decades since Leedskalnin’s death. In 1986, the gate stopped working and a crew of six men using a 45-ton crane removed the gate. Engineers were then able to see that Leedskalnin had drilled a hole through the gate stone from top to bottom and inserted a metal shaft. The rock itself rested on an old truck bearing, which had rusted out over time, resulting in the gate no longer being able to revolve. Workmen repaired the gate with new bearings and shaft and put it back into place. The gate failed again in 2005 and was repaired again, but modern engineers have never been able to quite duplicate Ed’s work and the gate no longer rotates with the same ease.

Presumably, Ed used nothing but his own knowledge and strength to cut and move the heavy stone blocks. The tools he used are on display at Coral Castle, and they vary from ropes, picks, pulleys, and winches. There are several theories as to how Ed was able to construct Coral Castle by himself, ranging from hard work to geomancy and magnetism.

Ed proclaims his achievement was a result of his hard work and understanding of leverage, and one of his friends, Orval Irwin, touches upon this by saying Coral Castle “wasn’t mysticism but hard work - this is how Ed really accomplished the massive project.” It did take Ed over 20 years to complete the project, and the amount of time taken does correspond with how much time it’d take for a single person to carve out a Coral Castle. Couple this with the power of a broken heart, and Ed should have been able to meet the time requirement.

What hard work doesn’t account for is how Ed, despite being sickly and barely 100 pounds, was able to move massive pieces of stone from quarry to Coral Castle.

What was his Secret?

Since there was no clear documentation of Coral Castle’s building process, speculation about Ed’s statement, “I know the secrets of the people who build the pyramids” has led to the belief that he may have applied geomancy in his creation. Geomancy is defined as the “the art of placing or arranging buildings or other sites auspiciously” or “interpreting lines or textures on the ground.” The first stones of Coral Castle were created in Florida City, but what caused Ed to move them to Homestead? Why didn’t he just build in Florida City where it would be more convenient?

Geomancy would provide a possible explanation for these questions, as well as to how Ed managed to do this all by himself, by providing the links between Ed’s knowledge of “leverage” and “secrets.” If Ed purposely moved into an area which he calculated with his “secrets,” then he would be able to apply “leverage” to move the large stones with minimal effort.

Ed claimed to have seen “beads of light” on objects which represented their magnetic properties. With this, he would have been able to use a polarizing force to easily move the stone slabs, but the whereabouts of this force are unknown. Other legends have stated that local children witnessed the large stone slabs levitating in the air like balloons, and another reported Ed to have sung to the rocks. Although Ed may have not had the raw strength to move the stone slabs, he may have been able to have found a suitable location with geomancy to apply the power of magnetism and be able to make these slabs “float.” Still, there is no proof this is what happened, and the mystery of magnetism died with Ed in 1951.

It is still unknown how Ed, a small and sickly man, was able to move such large stone slabs from a quarry to the Coral Castle, and he leaves many questions unanswered. What are the calculations Ed used to make the movement of the large stone slabs simple? Was it just Ed’s undying love that allowed him to commit to making Coral Castle? Or was it the use of magnetic forces which made it easy for him to move heavy slabs?

 

Posted from my blog @ Ancient Knowledge
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