Indiana Limestone

More than half of the stone buildings being erected in the U. S. are of limestone. More than 50% of the limestone comes from the great quarries of Indiana Limestone Co. Indiana limestone went into Washington's new Department of Commerce Building, New York's Empire State Building and Grand Central Terminal. Chicago's Tribune Tower. Detroit's General Motors Building. Only two months ago the company received the largest order in its history--3,200 cars for Manhattan's Rockefeller Center (Radio City). The company has developed a long list of by-products including quick lime, pulverized limestone for fertilizer, fluxing stone for blast furnaces, a powder for tennis courts, stone for dams, breakwaters and railroad embankments. Yet because the building industry was deflated long before the current Depression, Indiana Limestone has had difficulty in making both ends meet. In its 1928 fiscal year it made $430,000. In 1929 its profit dwindled to $10,000. Last year its net loss was $2,365,000.

With receivership in the offing. Indiana's bond and stockholders lately formed protective committees. Last week they devised a plan of reorganization which will result in $1,500,000 new capital for their enterprise.

Indiana's limestone deposits were formed aeons ago when the land was the floor of an ancient sea, peopled with small, shell-bearing animalcules. Dying, these formed massive beds of oolite. Until 1904 only a few quarries existed around Bedford but that year a big impetus was given to quarrying with the invention of a new type of circular saw. In 1926 Indiana Limestone was formed to merge 24 small companies. Behind the deal was Lawrence Harley Whiting of Chicago, president of the investment banking house of Whiting & Co. For president and chief operating executive he chose an oldtime stoneman, Augustus Edwin Dickinson. Stoneman Dickinson, known wide and far as "Big Dick," started in the stone business in 1885 when he was 16. He is 6 ft. 4 in. tall, weighs 225 lb., is usually to be seen in a dark suit, a light felt hat. smoking a cigar.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.