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This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Cement

by Jean H. Seaman, 2006

Cement, calcium oxide produced by heating carbonate rock or shell and used as a hardening and binding agent when mixed with water and sand, was manufactured from limestone, marl, and shell deposits for local use in antebellum North Carolina. On a commercial basis, the Blue Ridge Lime Company of Buncombe County was producing cement as early as 1903. The limestone deposits at Castle Hayne in New Hanover County supplied a series of cement plants in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first centuries. Work at these deposits also provided many interesting fossil specimens for collectors.

Reference:

William F. Wilson, P. Albert Carpenter III, and Stephen G. Conrad, North Carolina Geology and Mineral Resources: A Foundation for Progress, North Carolina Geological Survey Educational Series No. 4 (1976).

Image Credit:

Lime Kiln and Quarry, Blue Ridge Lime Company, 1907. Image available from NCSU libraries. Available from http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/ua023_007-007-bx0025-002-002 (accessed October 5, 2012)

Subjects:

N.C. Industrial Revolution (1900-1929)

Authors:

Origin - location:

From:

Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press.

1 January 2006 | Seaman, Jean H.