The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1907-07-31
"A PROMISING
ENTERPRISE
IS. 0. Mason's Concrete Works Are
Making a Noise Like a
Money Maker.
Inexhaustible Deposit Of Concrete
Sand and a Railroad
Beside It.

Last Friday representative OF
The GAZETTE was taken to S. @.
Mason's place east Of this city to
note the progress made towards de-
veloping his concrete manufacturing
industry. Oscars infant industrial
enterprise already shows signs of
having arrived to stay and to grow.
For one thing, the high price Of
lumber and the alarming signs of
the future decline in the supply Of
raw material for the saw mills is
driving consumers to investigate the
claims Of other and more permanent
building materials. 1t looks as
though the country is on the brink
of an epoch of concrete construction
in all lines, and should this develop,
Oscar will have a snap. His supply
of concrete sand and gravel is mex
haustible, at least for years to come,
and is SO located that it can be load
ed on to the M. & ST. Z. cars py
gravity or by steam shovels-
The hill containing this somewhat
remarkable deposit lis lscated along
one of the ravines leading down
from the historical spot where Lit
tie Grow once pitched his tepees, as
indicated by the grant, marker set
up by the historical society about
half way between this place and
Morton. Down in the glen there
are number of springs Of elegant,
crystal pure water. which made
trouble for the concrete workers
until Oscar procured number of
lengths of iron sewer pipe and at
tached them to the fountain, from
which now flow constant streams of
water, one supply running the little
water motor or ram which furnishes
an unfailing supply at the top of the
hill for the big cistern that is the
dependence of the concrete workers
at all stages of manufacture and
hardening of the blocks. In the
same vicinity is one end of the wire
cable carrier, loaded with fifteen
buckets at regular intervals, which
are filled as they slowly pass by men
with scoop shovels. two horses at
tached to sweep at the top Of the
hill furnishing the motive power,
and easily raising from six to eight
tons per hour of the coarse sand
required for the gravel mixers,
These carriers are made with dumr
bottoms, provided with a sort OF
trigger which automatically unloads
each box when it arrives at a given
point on the hill, the sand falling
on to a set of screens and being de
flected to the floor made to receive
the perfectly screened base for the
concrete. By this arrangement two
horses easily do the work Of half 3
la dozen laboriously hauling the
heavy sand up hill by wagon, which
would also mean three teamsters tc
manage them. The apparatus should
be seen to be fully appreciated.
We shall not attempt to describe
the various machines and processe
required to make the great variety
of brick, range rock work. paving
lstones and tile which the concrete
works are equipped to supply. W.
advise residents to ring up the Ma.
son farm and drive out there as W.
did, when the works are in opera
i ton.
I The main elements of cost in thi.
! industry are labor and the expensiv.
brands of Portland cement required
! Mr.. Mason is buying his cemen
| from local dealers at about $3.50 ;
carload. AS soon as the M. & st. /
puts in short spur track or switch
I from its main line about twent,
rods from the pit where Mr.. Masor