by William Lafferty » December 2, 2017, 2:01 pm
It also states the company had secured the services of the steamer E. M. Young for the upcoming 1929 season and that the company's primary customers were in the Chicago and Detroit markets.
Dolomite, Inc., was headquartered at Cleveland and operated a large limestone quarry at Maple Grove, Ohio. Its primary markets were from Detroit to Buffalo, especially the independent steel industry. In 1927 it acquired the L. D. Smith Stone Company (renamed the Sturgeon Bay Company) to augment that plant's production. Vessel passages in the
Detroit Free Press and
Port Huron Times 1928-1930 show that the cities most frequented by the
E. A. Yong were Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. There was little market for Door County limestone in Chicago since much stone was brought in by the steel mills' proprietary quarries (United States Steel and later Inland) and from Rockport and Alpena, while the city's construction needs were more than met by Cook County's own mammoth limestone quarries, most operated by Material Service Corporation. The Electro Motive plant I worked at summers near La Grange was (and is) surrounded by three giant quarries, one just to the west at East Avenue and a gigantic quarry off 55th Street (which the Tollway passes over), still very much in operation. There was a market for "harbor stone" (rip rap, etc.) at Chicago then as its lakefront was expanded and reconstructed that came from primarily Door County.
Does anyone know how long stone was shipped from Sturgeon Bay and where this facility was located?
Stone had been quarried and shipped from Sturgeon Bay since at least 1834. As for this particular quarry: Thomas Smith and John Leathem purchased a tract of land about five miles north of downtown Sturgeon Bay in 1893 for the production of rip rap and crib stone for harbor work, adding to their already diverse local investments in wrecking, towing, ice production, lumbering, retail sales, and other pursuits. As the lumber played out the quarry became more important, and in 1905 Smith installed a crushing plant to produce stone for construction and macadamizing roads that he operated intermittently between then and 1911 when his son Leathem, a recent graduate in civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin, bought a half-interest in his father's enterprises with money he made salvaging the steam barge
Panther. As a civil engineer Smith realized the increasing importance of crushed limestone in road building and construction, and the Thomas A. Smith Stone Company under his direction flourished, leading to a huge expansion undertaken by Stephens-Adamson in 1913 creating a state-of-the-art stone quarrying and crushing plant on Sturgeon Bay which was again modernized in 1922. Wishing to focus on shipbuilding and promoting his self-unloader patents, Smith sold the L. D. Smith Stone Company to Cleveland's Dolomite, Inc., in 1927 (see above). Dolomite expanded and modernized the plant yet again, just in time for the Depression, and defaulted on payments to Smith and other former shareholders of the L. D. Smith Stone Company in 1930 and 1931, leading to a bevy of lawsuits in early 1932 including a lawsuit against Smith over taxes on his stock sale. These were resolved by 1934 and the plant, a moribund operation by then, continued to operate at a drastically reduced output. In 1944 the quarry closed, all the plant's machinery moved to Drummond Island where a new quarry was to begin operation to aid the war effort, supplying a purer grade of limestone for the recently completed Dow Chemical magnesium plant at Ludington.
[quote]It also states the company had secured the services of the steamer E. M. Young for the upcoming 1929 season and that the company's primary customers were in the Chicago and Detroit markets.[/quote]
Dolomite, Inc., was headquartered at Cleveland and operated a large limestone quarry at Maple Grove, Ohio. Its primary markets were from Detroit to Buffalo, especially the independent steel industry. In 1927 it acquired the L. D. Smith Stone Company (renamed the Sturgeon Bay Company) to augment that plant's production. Vessel passages in the [i]Detroit Free Press[/i] and [i]Port Huron Times[/i] 1928-1930 show that the cities most frequented by the [i]E. A. Yong[/i] were Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. There was little market for Door County limestone in Chicago since much stone was brought in by the steel mills' proprietary quarries (United States Steel and later Inland) and from Rockport and Alpena, while the city's construction needs were more than met by Cook County's own mammoth limestone quarries, most operated by Material Service Corporation. The Electro Motive plant I worked at summers near La Grange was (and is) surrounded by three giant quarries, one just to the west at East Avenue and a gigantic quarry off 55th Street (which the Tollway passes over), still very much in operation. There was a market for "harbor stone" (rip rap, etc.) at Chicago then as its lakefront was expanded and reconstructed that came from primarily Door County.
[quote] Does anyone know how long stone was shipped from Sturgeon Bay and where this facility was located?[/quote]
Stone had been quarried and shipped from Sturgeon Bay since at least 1834. As for this particular quarry: Thomas Smith and John Leathem purchased a tract of land about five miles north of downtown Sturgeon Bay in 1893 for the production of rip rap and crib stone for harbor work, adding to their already diverse local investments in wrecking, towing, ice production, lumbering, retail sales, and other pursuits. As the lumber played out the quarry became more important, and in 1905 Smith installed a crushing plant to produce stone for construction and macadamizing roads that he operated intermittently between then and 1911 when his son Leathem, a recent graduate in civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin, bought a half-interest in his father's enterprises with money he made salvaging the steam barge [i]Panther[/i]. As a civil engineer Smith realized the increasing importance of crushed limestone in road building and construction, and the Thomas A. Smith Stone Company under his direction flourished, leading to a huge expansion undertaken by Stephens-Adamson in 1913 creating a state-of-the-art stone quarrying and crushing plant on Sturgeon Bay which was again modernized in 1922. Wishing to focus on shipbuilding and promoting his self-unloader patents, Smith sold the L. D. Smith Stone Company to Cleveland's Dolomite, Inc., in 1927 (see above). Dolomite expanded and modernized the plant yet again, just in time for the Depression, and defaulted on payments to Smith and other former shareholders of the L. D. Smith Stone Company in 1930 and 1931, leading to a bevy of lawsuits in early 1932 including a lawsuit against Smith over taxes on his stock sale. These were resolved by 1934 and the plant, a moribund operation by then, continued to operate at a drastically reduced output. In 1944 the quarry closed, all the plant's machinery moved to Drummond Island where a new quarry was to begin operation to aid the war effort, supplying a purer grade of limestone for the recently completed Dow Chemical magnesium plant at Ludington.