More than half of the stone buildings being erected in the U. S. are of
limestone. More than 50% of the limestone comes from the great
quarries of Indiana Limestone Co. Indiana limestone went into
Washington's new Department of Commerce Building, New York's Empire
State Building and Grand Central Terminal. Chicago's Tribune Tower.
Detroit's General Motors Building. Only two months ago the company
received the largest order in its history—3,200 cars for Manhattan's
Rockefeller Center . The company has developed a long list
of by-products including quick lime, pulverized limestone for
fertilizer, fluxing stone for blast furnaces, a powder for tennis
courts, stone for dams, breakwaters and railroad embankments. Yet
because the building industry was deflated long before the current
Depression, Indiana Limestone has had difficulty in making both ends
meet. In its 1928 fiscal year it made $430,000. In 1929 its profit
dwindled to $10,000. Last year its net loss was $2,365,000. With receivership in the offing. Indiana's bond and stockholders lately
formed protective committees. Last week they devised a plan of
reorganization which will result in $1,500,000 new capital for their
enterprise. Indiana's limestone deposits were formed aeons ago when the land was the
floor of an ancient sea, peopled with small, shell-bearing animalcules.
Dying, these formed massive beds of oolite. Until 1904 only a few
quarries existed around Bedford but that year a big impetus was given
to quarrying with the invention of a new type of circular saw. In 1926
Indiana Limestone was formed to merge 24 small companies. Behind the
deal was Lawrence Harley Whiting of Chicago, president of the
investment banking house of Whiting & Co. For president and chief
operating executive he chose an oldtime stoneman, Augustus Edwin
Dickinson. Stoneman Dickinson, known wide and far as “Big Dick,”
started in the stone business in 1885 when he was 16. He is 6 ft. 4 in.
tall, weighs 225 lb., is usually to be seen in a dark suit, a light
felt hat. smoking a cigar.
