Gros Caillou

This guide to the Gros Caillou in Lyon follows two separate funicular tunnelling crews, one in 1861 and another in 1890, who each struck an enormous glacial boulder while boring under Croix-Rousse. It traces the confusion that followed: locals still credit the wrong dig for the boulder now on display, since the older stone was sealed forever inside a bridge foundation. The surviving rock was hoisted onto its plinth on the twelfth of April, 1891, put on display to advertise the funicular company's own engineering muscle.