Alamo Portland and Roman Cement Company

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight with a little Texas flavor. Near this very site, back in 1879, an Englishman named William Loyd was poking around the Texas earth and turned up something worth noticing — a blue argillaceous limestone that looked, to the right eye, like it might just be natural cement rock. Now Loyd wasn't a chemist, so he took his discovery to a man who was.

George H. Kalteyer, a San Antonio druggist and chemist, ran the analysis. And what he found confirmed it — the rock held the proper proportions of lime and clay to produce portland cement.

The ground right here was sitting on a fortune, and these two men knew it. Loyd and Kalteyer pulled in other investors, and together they organized the Alamo Portland and Roman Cement Company, chartered in January of 1880. What they had built — and friend, let that sink in — was the first portland cement plant west of the Mississippi.

It started modestly, with an intermittent pot kiln. Just one. But the ambition was already bigger than that.

By 1881 they had added a second pot kiln, and that same year the company was rechristened the Alamo Cement Company. Then in 1889 came the tall stack Schoefer-type kiln, and this operation was growing into something the whole region would feel. Feel it how, you ask?

Well, when you walk through the Texas State Capitol building in Austin, or past the Driskill Hotel — cement from this very plant went into those walls. That's the kind of legacy that doesn't whisper; it stands in stone. The company flourished through the vision and leadership of its portland cement pioneers — Loyd, Kalteyer, and Charles Baumberger, who stepped into the presidency after Kalteyer's death in 1897 and kept the thing moving.

In 1908 the plant picked up and relocated to a site that would later be known as Cementville, near Alamo Heights. And the original quarry? It didn't just sit idle.

That old hole in the earth became the Japanese Sunken Gardens in Brackenridge Park. And the kiln area — where those early pot kilns once fired through Texas nights — was designated Baumberger Plaza in 1944. A druggist, an Englishman, a limestone ridge, and a vision that poured itself into the very bones of this state.

Not bad for a blue rock nobody else had thought twice about.

What the marker says

Near this site in 1879, Englishman William Loyd discovered a blue argillaceous limestone believed to be a natural cement rock. Analysis by San Antonio druggist and chemist George H. Kalteyer confirmed the rock contained proper proportions of lime and clay to produce portland cement. Loyd and Kalteyer, along with other investors, organized the Alamo Portland and Roman Cement Company, which was chartered in January 1880. This, the first portland cement plant west of the Mississippi, began with on intermittent pot kiln. A second pot kiln was added in 1881, when the company name was changed to Alamo Cement Company. The tall stack Schoefer-type kiln was added in 1889. Cement from this plant was used in the construction of the State Capitol and the Driskill Hotel in Austin. Through the vision and leadership of Portland Cement pioneers Loyd, Kalteyer,and Charles Baumberger, who succeeded to the presidency following Kalteyer's death in 1897, the company flourished. In 1908 the plant relocated to a site later known as Cementville near Alamo Heights. The original quarry became the Japanese Sunken Gardens in Brackenridge Park. The kiln area was designated as Baumberger Plaza in 1944. (1991)