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30 • ROCK products • September 2015 www.rockproducts.com rock products industries to a greater degree than ever before in the history of these industries." Three weeks later on Nov. 22, 1924, Edgar Harvey Defebaugh, founder of Rock Products, died. The late 1920s, before the Wall Street crash, saw a level of pros- perity heretofore not experienced in the rock products indus- try. President Calvin Coolidge said during the decade that, "the business of America is business." Aggregate production levels climbed from 158 million tons in 1920 to 361 million tons in 1929. Portland cement production also rose considerably from 18.8 million tons in 1920 to 32 million tons in 1929. Building contracts in 1925 were valued at $4.5 billion, and con- struction in 1928 reached a value of $8 billion, 3 percent higher than that of 1927. At the same time, the Sherman Antitrust Act was felt as an ever-growing threat to prices. In 1929, Rock Products report- ed that the NCSA was organizing an effort to petition against the law, and to request provisions that would legalize "pools, division of territory and price agreement-always, of course, in such a way as to place the public welfare uppermost in consid- eration." Railroad car shortages had been a continuous problem in the previous decades, but, in the 1920s, rock products producers began to use their own cars, barges and self-unloading boats to bring material from the point of production to a distribution yard. This allowed them more control of distribution methods and to cut down their reliance on railroads. Batcher bins were developed as part of this trend. Transpor- tation of batched aggregate had been problematic in the past because coarses and fines would shift. Plants in the late 1920s began to install batchers as part of the plants, so the delivery of concrete mix in gross was becoming replaced in great part by delivery of proportioned mix in batches. An increased emphasis was placed in the late 1920s on research and developing new applications for rock products. The labs of the Bureau of Mines at Rutgers University in New Jersey focused on fledgling cement applications, including building blocks, roofing tile, pipe and architectural stone. In 1926, the NSGA established a research facility, and the NCSA established their own in 1928. Research on alternative uses for gypsum continued in the late 1920s. F. Tweddell, M.D., announced in 1924 that the inhalation of gypsum dust could prevent and cure tuberculosis, but he was not allowed to test the procedure in hospitals. Gypsum dust also was thought to be a cure for foot-and-mouth disease and was marketed rurally as such. Although gypsum wall-board had been used for many years, the first-ever gypsum wall-board machine was introduced in 1923. Alternative applications for lime also continued to be researched in this period. It was believed that the addition of lime to water would prevent pipe corrosion and "red water." Lime also was thought to kill bacteria. Dr. F.F. Baer warned in 1926 that soils would need more liming to accommodate the growing United States population, which he expected would reach 200 million by the year 2040. In the Quarries In the quarries, there was a shift to larger tonnage plants. The use of moveable plants also became popular. A record quarry blast at the Blue Diamond Co. in Los Angeles, Calif., broke 21 million tons of rock using 182 tons of explosives. More than 40,000 spectators witnessed the blast, which rattled windows within a 15-mile radius. Rock dusting of coal mines was experimented with and became popular after 1924. The process involved scattering rock dust in mine passages, which was thought to suppress coal dust that would otherwise be explosive. Safety issues had begun to be addressed in the early 1920s, and protective gear was worn in many operations. In early 1928, a safety voucher was introduced by the PCA and offered to 2,400 foremen and department heads in the industry for signature. The form stated that within the previous 48 hours a plant safety inspection had been done, and that it would be repeated the following month. Self-regulation was the only reg- ulation in these years. In 1928, Rock Products for the first time recognized a number of cement mills for operation throughout 1927 without lost-time accidents. The PCA presented 10 mills with trophies commem- orating their safety records, and outlined their continuing plan for safety throughout the industry. A.J. Curtis, assistant to the general manager of the PCA, said, "We have had a good year – but zero is the limit with us; we will not be satisfied until every man in every mill is a safe worker." Road building continued through the end of the decade as it had years before, at a rate of steady growth. The Federal Highway Act of 1925 established the first official Interstate Highway System. By 1926, $1 billion per year was being spent on highways in the United States. That same year, the American Road Builders Association estimated that traffic congestion cost the country more than $1.6 billion annually. Of more than 3 million miles at the same time, about 500,000 were paved or surfaced. The portland cement industry in the late 1920s saw prosperity like never before. In 1929, the cement industry breathed a short sigh of relief, as for the first time since 1921, a saturation point was reached. The success of cement plants that worked through the 1924 winter in Lehigh Valley helped spur winter industry push in the late 1920s for a standard year-round work year. "If department