Bill,
I do not have an immediate answer to all of your questions, but will get
answers to the rest shortly. I worked there for almost two years in the mid
70's and have a close friend who worked there his entire life.
The name of the company is Conco-Western, more affectionately known as
'Conkeys" and yes they are still in business. Conkeys is a limestone quarry, or
at least was, as it is now a mining operation about 200 feet below grade.
Conco-Western also had operations somewhere near LaSalle-Peru. I remember
having to ready the conveyors and crushers for truck travel, seeing them pulled
in convoy out of North Aurora and then returned for operation.
When I worked there, they had three concrete silos which were once used to load
crushed stone into railcars, at least that was my understanding and will
confirm at a later date.
There were two industries on either side of Conkeys which used the limestone
products - a precast concrete facility to the north and a redi-mix plant to the
south.
To my knowledge, the precast concrete plant is still there, but greatly
downsized.
These two facilities used tons of washed limestone in their concrete products
on a daily basis and was transported to them by truck at the time.
My job was as a laborer and occasional operator. My last year was spent
operating the HMS Plant, which washed the stone of lime and 'chert' for quality
concrete production. In simpler terms, I made the bad rocks float and washed
off the good rocks.
The superintendent for the operation was my neighbor for years, but has since
passed. I will speak to his wife and see if she may have pictures or any
recollection. The other individual still lives in North Aurora and worked at
the quarry forever. I will call him this week.
Tom Whitt
----- Original Message -----
From: William Barber
To: brHSlist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 7:57 AM
Subject: [BRHSlist] Aurora Branch Industries
There have been several recent notes about operations and industries
between Aurora and West Chicago. Back around 1956-1957, my dad and I
were driving along route 25 paralleling the Aurora branch. It was a
weekend or a holiday. We came upon a gravel quarry operation on the east
side of the road. It had a rail connection to the branch which crossed
route 25. In the quarry, which appeared to be a relatively small
operation digging out the side of a hill, not a deep pit, were three or
four 0-4-0 tank steam locomotives. They appeared to be ready to go and
even had wood and paper on the grates for a fire.
Does anyone on the list have any information about this operation.
1. What was the name of the company?
2. How long was it there?
3. When did it go out of business?
4. When did the steam locomotives disappear?
5. Did they ever operate with internal combustion locomotives?
6. Did the Q switch them or did they set cars out on a siding for Q pick
up?
7. Where was the material they dug, shipped?
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