This promotional booklet for Lone Star Cement Corporation and its history from 1950-1951 was donated to the Botetourt Museum of History & Culture by Peter G. Shick.
His father, Homer C. Shick, was transferred from the Lone Star Plant in Nazareth, Pa., to Botetourt County in 1950 to help build a new plant. At the time they had 25 plants in the United States and South America.
A site along Rt. 779 west of Daleville toward Catawba was chosen because it had large amounts of limestone deposits. It was purchased from John Rhodes, Earl and Pearl Duffy, the Moran family and others. More land was purchased later.
Lone Star also purchased the rights to a railroad built in the 1800s that had been used to transport pig iron from the Catawba Furnace located along Catawba Creek. This railroad from Cloverdale to the future site had to be built before construction on the plant could start. In 1950 Rt. 779 (Catawba Road), was not suitable for transporting heavy equipment and supplies.
After the railroad was completed, E.F. Nichols was hired to haul gravel from Liberty Limestone Quarry in Buchanan to the concrete batch plant site. The dump trucks were involved in numerous accidents as they hurried between the two locations. Lone Star’s Botetourt plant began producing cement in 1951 and was once the county’s largest employer. Cement is a binder for concrete, mortar and grout.
Today it is known as Roanoke Cement Company and is a subsidiary of Titan America, LLC. The parent company, Titan Cement Company, S.A. is headquartered in Athens, Greece.
On April 29, 2020, The Fincastle Herald published the article “Roanoke Cement is awarded TRUE Gold.”
More information can be found at the Botetourt Historical Socirty’s free museum in Fincastle.
