Hancock County
Nineteen records within the haul ring, and five of them are in Illinois
Gray Quarries Inc runs a surface limestone operation of its own name here, and the federal mine register records 10 employees at it. The haul radius filed against it is 35 miles, taken from freight cost per ton and flagged as an estimate.
Nineteen records of any kind fall inside that ring, and Illinois supplies five of them. Ten are in Iowa and four in Missouri. The two nearest are both Iowa rail yards — Keokuk at 1.90 miles and Buena Vista at 4.08 miles, in Lee County, directly across the Mississippi.
Sources: MSHA Mine Data Retrieval System and the city-pages node list, checked 2026-08-24.
Apportioned plates are the normal condition here, not the exception
Those proportions have a paperwork consequence, and it is the one that catches people out when they come to sell. A truck based here works two states as a matter of routine rather than as an occasional trip, because inside the 35 miles the nearest work is 1.90 miles away in Lee County and the Hancock County records are the minority. Apportioned registration and fuel tax reporting are the ordinary condition of the vehicle, not something bolted on for a special run.
Iowa’s own rules were not researched for this page and we are not going to summarise them from memory. What we will say is that a two-state history in the paperwork is normal here and is not a complication from our side — we see it constantly and it does not change how the offer is made.
Bridge crossings and loaded grades. Two states of road tax on one odometer.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change
So aggregate haulers and dump trucks are the ordinary shape around Gray Quarries Inc and its ten people, with farm trucks and flatbeds across the Hancock County ground and day cabs running the Lee County crossings. That is a read off the mine register, not a preference of ours. We buy all of them.
Road tractors, box trucks, straight trucks, work trucks and pickups are used everywhere, Hamilton included, and the offer is made the same way on any of them.
Most of the reasons people sell aren’t happy ones, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone. That’s what we’re here for.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. A missing bumper is fine.
Illinois law
What the state lets a truck carry
Those loads all run under one set of numbers. Illinois statute 625 ILCS 5/15-111 sets 80,000 pounds gross for five or more axles, 20,000 pounds on a single axle and 34,000 pounds on a tandem, with no axle inside that tandem over 20,000 pounds, and a formula for consecutive axle groups that varies with spacing.
Local authorities and cities over 50,000 people may set their own weight limits by ordinance, but the same statute stops them exceeding the state maximums. So an Illinois local limit can only ever be lower than the state figure, never higher — which is worth checking before you plan a route on the state number alone.
That section carries no seasonal frost provisions and no harvest or agricultural exemptions. That is scoped to that section of the statute and is not a claim that Illinois has no seasonal restriction anywhere, which we did not check.
Source: Illinois General Assembly, 625 ILCS 5/15-111. Checked 2026-08-23.
Questions we get asked
- Does it have to run?No. We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it — but a truck that doesn’t start and is otherwise all there is fine. A missing bumper is fine.
- What about the title?We need a title — unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If yours is lost, a replacement is a counter transaction at the Secretary of State. If there has never been one, there is a bonded route. Those are the three cases people actually arrive with.
- Do you come out this far?We do — and a truck that works both banks is often simplest to buy remotely, with the tow arranged after, so nobody is timing a crossing. We buy across Hancock County, into Henderson County and Adams County, and in Warsaw, Nauvoo and Carthage — getting to you is our problem, not yours.
- How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, at pickup. That is the whole of it.