The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1910-02-24
A WEST VIRGINIA CORPORATION
PUTTING IN A PLANT AT
CHAMBERLAIN
VAST DEPOSITS IN STATE
Product Of the Yankton Plant Stands
With the Very Best in World
and Possibilities are
Flattering
(By Doane Robinson)

one of South Dakota's most alum
dant and valuable is her ex-
tensive deposits of the materials from
which Portland cement is compound
ed. The lime rock and hat quality
Of clay essential to Portland cement
Is here found in apparently mex
haustible quantities and in close
proximity, so that all of the nee
essarv ingredients can be shoveled
directly from the quarry into the
mill. My information is that they are
not elsewhere found so closely, but
that either the lime rock or clay must
be transported a considerable dis
lance.
The cement deposits extend from
Yankton to Chamberlain almost I'M
in|terruptedly. Above Chamberlain
there is abundant deposits, but not
with all of the ingredients in close
proximity. At Pierre, for instance,
the shales lack something in the nee
essary lime, and the latter would be
required to be shipped from the
Black Hills.
1t is now twenty-five years since
development began at Yankton, and
the product OF the Western Portland
Cement works there has attained
high favor with builders. In tensile
strength IT exceeds most others. The
mills there nave been under most
conservative management, but with
the vastly increased demand for the
product, have recently been some
what extending the output. At pres
ent "A force of 500 men is employed
and the product approXimates 900
barrels per day. The government is
4 large customer of the Yankton
works, and much of the product is
used in the Western irrigation prof.
eCts, Yankton cement has been used
entirely upon the Belle Fourche prof.
ect. 1t has been used exclusively IN
the new capitol. The Yankton prod
act need be limited only by facili-
ties, and market for the material is
in~definably great in quantity.
A West Virginia corporation,
known as Dakota Portland Cement
is building a larger plant
1T Chamberlain. The company has
two and one half million capital and
proposes to employ 800 men and
manufacture a million barrels per
year. The compan" owns 1900 acres
Of cement land, and has interested N
it several of our well known local
capitalists of the state. AS at Eank-
ton the chalk rock and the Pierre
shales lie together so that all of the
material will come from a single
quarry.
Pierre had hoped to utilize natural
gas i'm cement making, but the first
projectors were discouraged when Vt
was learned from analysis lime would
have to be brought from a distance.
Since then the extension of the rail-
road to Rapid city has made very
excellent lime available and there is
renewed agitation for development.
The United States Gypsum com
pany, known as the cement trust, has
extensive wall plaster works at Rap
id City. where there are mountains Of
pure gypsum. They Manufacture a
prepared hard wall plaster Of super
ior quality. and are finding a grow
ing and profitable market. Rapid
city is also manufacturing lime IN
commercial quantities from a rock
that has the distinction among lime
stones, Of showing less thai ! per
cent Of impurities injurious to lime.
With the new developments in the
use of cement there is much TO en-
courage the belief hat our deposits
of cement material gypsum and lime
will become to the builders what the
pine forests of Michigan, Wisconsin
and Minnesota formerly were in i'm
p~ortance.