The County That Wanted to Make Its Own Cement
The man who found immense cement deposits near Cement in 1901 is organizing a local company to build a 300-barrel mill—and promising cheaper cement for Stevens County.
F. G. Jordan, of Cement, was a Colville visitor yesterday. He is the man who discovered the immense cement deposits in that section in 1901, and has been instrumental in the formation of the Phoenix Cement and Manufacturing Co., which is now incorporating. The company will expend about $200,000 in developing the property and erecting mills, which will have a 300-barrel capacity. It is strictly a Stevens county company, but much of the stock will be sold in the east. Products from the plant can be retailed for less than half the prices at which cement is now shipped into the county, and this cement industry will in time be one of the important factors in the building up of Stevens county. —Examiner
“Products from the plant can be retailed for less than half the prices at which cement is now shipped into the county, and this cement industry will in time be one of the important factors in the building up of Stevens county.”
Cement was a key ingredient of the early twentieth-century building boom, and Stevens County hoped to supply its own rather than import it at high cost. The promised local mill echoes today’s rural-development debates over keeping resource value—and jobs—closer to home.
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