1929 - Coal City Trucking
While working for a Battery Company, Alfred W. Dearth (Sonny) had construction on his mind. His first move into the construction industry came when he decided to join forces with the McElvain family. $100 investment later, Sonny was in the business of hauling coal.
Coal City Trucking was born and its first purchase was a Model 'A' Ford, open cab with a box on the end. Sonny drove this single axle dump truck that could carry around 7 tons of material.
As the demand for hauling grew, so did Coal City Trucking. While most surrounding farmers used Fords or Chevys, Coal City Trucking used International for it's off road stability and larger hauling capacity. These new trucks had tandem axles instead of the traditional single axle giving it a 12 ton load limit.
1952 - Coal City Redi-Mix
As the company grew, so did the area and the demand for materials. The main material hauled up to this point was coal. However, with growing construction came the need for stone and gravel. Most roads were paved with stone, so bids were made and before he knew it, Sonny was hauling stone and gravel for roads of the greater Grundy County area.
Then in 1952, Coal City Redi-Mix was born. Sonny made his move into the concrete business with his son AJ (above-middle) and the purchase of five, two-yard mixers. These mixers were not like todays. The newly purchased mixers had a hatch on the side that was opened so the truck could be loaded and closed for mixing and unloading. Concrete was sold for around $8 per cubic yard and delivered within a 15 mile radius of the plant. Coal City Redi-Mix at this time did mainly residential work until their first big job, the Canal Bridge off North Broadway.
Batching concrete was done quite differently in those days. There were no computer controlled batch plants. Concrete mixtures were all weighed by hand using levers and graduated beam scales. The levers corresponded to the sand, stone and cement. Water was also manually dispersed. Today, cement is blown into large silos for storage. Back then, cement was delivered by rail and carried by a bucket system into the storage bins. Very similar to the way grain is moved in some farm operations.
1985 - Expansion - Grundy County Redi-Mix
The housing and commercial markets were rapidly growing. Steve and Mike (Sonny's grandsons) decided it was time to expand. Grundy County Redi-Mix was born. In June of 1985, Grundy batched its first yard of concrete. The fleet consisted of four trucks.
By 1996 Grundy started to exceed its capabilities with one redi-mix plant. It seemed the trucks were spending more time waiting to load than hauling concrete. So a second plant was built on the same location which doubled the capability to load trucks.
1999 Central Illinois Conveying
In April of 1999, to better service our customers, Central Illinois Conveying was started. These 105' truck mounted conveyors allowed us to furnish concrete in most places and conditions. CIC has now grown to 6 conveyors and 3 pumps and serves all of North and Central Illinois.
2004 River Redi-Mix
In 2004, Steve and Mike joined forces with Spicer Redi-Mix of Marseilles and River Redi-Mix was formed. With the purchase of this location, our service extended to areas west and LaSalle County.
