Limestone in a ring, and a cement works at the edge of it
The ring around the borough is limestone. The Stitt Mine works it 4.7 miles off at Lenape Heights, the Graff Mine 7.2 miles away, the Bison Mine 8.5 miles and a lime company 8.6 miles, the last three all at Worthington.
At 9.6 miles the Armstrong Cement works burns cement with 55 people on it.
Cement and lime move in pneumatic tankers, limestone in dumps.
And then there is the coal, which is bituminous here
Beyond those quarries there is coal, and it is bituminous here rather than anthracite. A preparation plant sits 9.9 miles off at Freeport, the Tidal Mine 10.3 miles at Templeton, and further out the Dutch Run workings 14.4 and 15.0 miles away at Shelocta with the Parkwood Mine between them at 14.9 miles and 68 people on it — the biggest single payroll within twenty miles.
A rail yard sits 8.6 miles off at Templeton, and the Sewickley Mine works stone 18.0 miles away at Avonmore in Indiana County.
The road network out here was built for a heavier industry than the one still working it, so the roads are older and more numerous than the present traffic would justify. That is easier on a truck in some ways and harder in others: more choices of route, and less money maintaining any of them.
Dumps of every axle count, pneumatic tankers off the cement and lime, flatbeds, day cabs, rollbacks, box trucks, service bodies and pickups.
A body that hauled clay and later ran limestone off the Stitt Mine is ordinary in this county, and it leaves two quite different residues behind. Between short hauls to the Armstrong Cement works and longer runs out to Shelocta, the wear tends to be in springs and brakes rather than on the odometer.
- Common on a truck off this borough and not a problem.
- Around the Graff Mine and the Bison Mine a body often did both, and it does not stop a sale.
A plant changes what it wants hauled, and a body suited to one mineral suits the next one badly. With clay, limestone, lime, cement and coal all inside twenty miles, that happens here more than in a county working a single rock.
Those trucks end up standing between the Tidal Mine 10.3 miles off and the Dutch Run workings 15.0 miles away, along with the usual retirements and estates.