A piece of Dixon history: Cracks in Dixon’s cement plant road

This is Part 2 of my attempt to capture historical highlights of Dixon’s cement plant, which is now in its final months of operation.

Of all the manufacturers that have come to Dixon, the cement plant holds the distinction of being the longest-operating manufacturer in city history. In its 118-year history, the cement plant brought great economic vitality to Dixon, but it also encountered a few “cracks in the road.”

Rebuffing the bluffs

The first problem was the community’s desire to save the bluffs along the river from cement plant operations. These bluffs were the home of Fuller’s Cave and Fuller’s Spring, which were favorite landmarks and picnic sites for Dixonites and anyone boating up and down the river.

On Feb. 20, 1906, 19 months before the new cement plant began operation, the local historical society publicly expressed its support for the plant but stated its desire “to preserve the historic and picturesque bluffs along the Rock River.”

Later that year, while construction progressed, “the ladies of the Peoria Avenue Reading Club and the Phidian Art Club sent a joint petition” to company officers, asking that they “mutilate as little as possible the bluffs which front the river.”

It appears that the company initially heeded those concerns. But by 1914, those bluffs were apparently deemed too rich in the ideal limestone rock needed for cement production.

Historian Frank Stevens, in his 1914 History of Lee County, said, “Only a few days ago Fuller’s Cave, known far and wide, was blasted.” The community groaned briefly, but they knew the enormous economic benefits that the cement plant was bringing daily to Dixon.

Many years later, in 1931, Illinois Attorney General Oscar E. Carlstrom recalled his college days in Dixon when Fuller’s Cave was “a beauty spot of the community.” In a speech delivered to the cement plant and visiting dignitaries, Carlstrom joked that “the cement company had transplanted picturesque Fuller’s Cave … into paved highways of the state.”

Warming the water

One unforeseen impact of the cement plant was its surprising effect on the river. At the time, no one owned electric refrigerators, and area homes kept food cool via “ice boxes” supplied by ice harvested from the Rock River. One of the major suppliers was the Dixon Pure Ice company, located downriver from the cement plant, just southwest of today’s Raynor factory.

In 1913, Dixon Pure Ice sued the cement plant for $25,000 (about $800,000 in today’s money) for damages alleged to have been caused by pumping daily about 4 million gallons of heated water into the river, which “during the winter destroyed about 25,000 tons of ice.”

The ice company won the lawsuit. The cement plant appealed the decision, taking its case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But its final appeal was denied in May 1915. Eventually, the company developed a way to cool its water before releasing it into the river.

Accidents and fatalities

The process of producing cement powder involves several potentially dangerous activities, such as quarrying, crushing, grinding and heating. In the Dixon cement plant’s early years, the Dixon Evening Telegraph reported many gruesome accidents and fatalities of workers.

Long before the U.S. created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1971, accident prevention became a major focus throughout the cement manufacturing industry. The Dixon plant’s safety efforts reached a milestone in 1930, when the plant achieved a perfect safety record of zero lost-time accidents for the entire year.

To mark the achievement – and to emphasize the importance of safety – the Portland Cement Association came to Dixon with several dignitaries to present an award in 1931. As part of the celebration, the company created “Medusa Park” at the front of the plant along Route 2. The park “converted an unsightly tract to a place of beauty within a very few months.”

The cement plant produced all of the park equipment, including a large fountain, walks, eight decorative park benches, bird baths, and other monuments, all flood-lighted at night. Today, the only surviving remnant of the 1931 Medusa Park is a large monument that includes several subsequent safety records.

The Dixon dust bowl

When the Dixon plant was being planned in 1905, the company promised that cement plant dust “will be entirely free in the new plant.” However, even three decades later, the Telegraph reported that airborne dust had been “the source of some complaint in Dixon and vicinity for a number of years.”

In 1938, the company installed an expensive new system that was “designed to eliminate all kiln dust” from the 300-foot smokestack. But the dust problem continued. In 1945, the plant announced another system to control the dust. Still, little relief.

In 1949, a Dixon citizen wrote a letter to the editor of the Telegraph, noting that “most everybody in Dixon has had cause to complain of the cement dust.” The writer begged the plant to simply fulfill its promise to control the dust. The plant tried, but even through the 1960s, cement dust continued to cover cars and trees around the plant and beyond.

With the advent of the Environmental Protection Agency and OSHA in 1971, federal pressure forced the development of better dust-control technologies throughout the cement industry. In time, the old, ineffective technologies were replaced, finally minimizing the dust problem.

When Cemex bought the plant in 2003, the company spent more than a million dollars on dust control. Today, most Dixonites born after 1970 probably do not recall the problem of cement plant dust.

In Part 3, this column will reveal several proud highlights of the cement plant’s history, along with the key reasons for its ultimate demise.

• Dixon native Tom Wadsworth is a writer, speaker and occasional historian. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament.