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Manchester's Cement Factory

Manchester's Cement Factory image
Parent Issue
Day
20
Month
March
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

MANCHESTER"S CEMENT FACTORY

$25,000 Raised for It in Manchester Village

WILL LOCATE IN TOWN

And a Railroad from the Village to the Marl Beds will be Built

Manchester is to have a big cement factory employing 150 men within its corporate limits before a year and a half rolls around, unless all signs fail.

The Toledo Portland Cement Co., which proposes to erect the new cement plant, is capitalized at $500,000 under the laws of Michigan. It owns 800 acres of land three or four miles from Manchester, 500 of which are marl beds and 300 of which is aluminum clay. The experts of the company say that these marl beds were formerly lake beds and that the marl ranges in depth from 12 to 60 feet. This land is situated about Half Moon lake and surrounding lakes.

The first intention of the company was to build their plant in the midst of their holdings, but they made an offer to Manchester that if a site for a factory were given them and the right of way secured for a railroad and $25,000 in stock subscribed by the citizens of Manchester, they would build their plant within the corporate limits of Manchester.

A hustle was made and the $25,000 in stock has already been subscribed. This stock subscription is made payable in five equal installments, one when the foundations of the factory are completed, one when the main building is completed, one when the operating machinery is installed, one when the railway is completed to and f'rom the marl beds and the last when the entire plant is in effective operation. The subscriptions are to be void unless the entire plant is in full operation within 18 months.

The company's experts say that each acre of their marl land contains enough to manufacture $300,000 barrels of cement, which would make their supply equal to 150,000,000 barrels, more than enough to supply the factory for 100 years.

It is proposed to put up a factory with capacity at the start of 1,000 barrels of cement a day.

The majority of the directors in the enterprise are Toledo men, including the president, Dr. William Watts, and the secretary and treasurer, Albert W. Butler. The other Toledo directors are W. O. Holst. John Rochford, S. R. Easterday, Jacob N. Bick and Geo. T. Butler. R. T. Van Valkenburg, of La Porte, Ind., is a director and general manager, and C. M. Cooley, of Manchester, is a director and the resident secretary and treasurer. A. J. Waters, of Manchester, is the resident attorney.