Sugar Creek, MO: 1905 Central Plains Cement and Limestone Mine

(Satellite)

Mining #Shorts posted

Sugar Creek looks like a coal operation from the outside: a deep shaft, underground workings and industrial-scale output. But the material leaving this Missouri mine is limestone, the essential raw feed for cement production.

Located beside Kansas City, the operation supports Central Plains Cement’s Sugar Creek plant. The site’s roots reach back to 1905, when it opened as the Missouri Portland Cement quarry and cement works. More than a century later, mining continues beneath the community.

Access to the workings is provided through a vertical shaft descending roughly 700 feet [213m]. Underground, miners use room-and-pillar methods, cutting broad entries while leaving sections of limestone in place to support the roof. The layout includes multiple openings leading toward production and milling areas.

Scale is Sugar Creek’s defining feature. GlobalData estimated that the mine produced about 15.96 million metric tonnes of run-of-mine material in 2021, ranking it among North America’s largest underground mines by extracted tonnage. That figure represents raw limestone movement, not finished cement output.

Eagle Materials acquired the Sugar Creek cement plant and associated assets from Lafarge North America in 2012. The mine is now operated through Central Plains Cement and remains the only underground operation serving Eagle Materials’ cement network, whose other limestone sources use surface mining.

Once extracted, the rock is processed into the principal ingredient for Portland cement used across construction markets. Sugar Creek isn’t an underground coal giant. It’s something far less discussed: a century-old limestone mine operating at a scale comparable with mineral and coal operations.

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Photo: Central Plains Cement

Surfside, FL: Champlain Towers Collapsed Jun 24, 2021, killing 98 people

(Satellite, I think Ocean88 Condominium reused the land.)

"The failure probably started about three weeks before the collapse when two connections between garage columns and the pool deck slab failed." The design did not meet building code standards for a margin of safety, so the two initial failures cascaded. [@ 5:00]

The critically low margins against failure existed from the time the building was constructed. The design was severely inadequate, and it was not built according to the design Loads added to the structure during its life further reduced those margins. The triggering cause of the initial failures was probably long-term degradation from corrosion. [@ 7:54]

10:19 video @ 3:42

@ 9:20

I presume the building's design was submitted to the town to get a building permit. I had to do that in Downers Grove, IL, for something as simple as a deck. And I was told that I had to redo the design using larger boards for the deck joists. (I used boards specified by a book that I checked out from the library.) The video did not discuss why the inadequate design was not caught by the permit review. Nor did it discuss why the building issues were not caught by the building inspectors.

Coplay, PA: 1866+1894 Coplay Cement Company Kilns and Lafarge

(Satellite)

The manufacturing of Portland cement in the USA began in this town in 1875. The limestone in this area had the three ingredients needed to make cement: lime, silica, and alumina. And anthracite coal to provide the needed heat in the kilns was just up the Lehigh River from here.

Street View, Jul 2024

Mark David, Feb 2022

pbase

"The nine vertical kilns of the Coplay Cement Company were used for the production of Portland cement. These were Schoefer kilns, a Danish modification of an upright kiln originally developed in Germany. The kilns were 90 feet high and originally surrounded by a building which has since been taken down, as well as the top 30 feet of the kilns removed. The kilns were completed in 1894 and constructed of locally made red brick. It is believed these may be the only extant copies of this type of kiln.

"A special limestone found nearby was quarried, ground, and made into crude bricks which were fed into the kilns and heated to around 2000ºF by burning anthracite coal, brought in by railroad from the mining area north of here. The sintered results were ground into powder as the final product."

AmericanHeritage
"Lehigh County acquired the kilns in 1976 and launched a rehabilitation campaign....Not only do these structures represent the transition in kiln technology from the bottle or dome kiln to the rotary kiln, but they stand as a fitting monument to the pioneering role of David O. Saylor, the Coplay Cement Company, and the Lehigh Valley area in the development of the American portland cement industry.

"Several years before he constructed his first cement plant in 1866, Saylor purchased the land where it and the future mills of the Coplay Cement Company would be located. His first mill, often referred to as plant A, where he made his first portland cement in 1871, was utilized well into the 1890s but was demolished early in the 20th century. In 1892, eight years after Saylor's death, the Coplay management, faced with a growing demand for its product, decided to erect a new mill, and eventually 11 Schoefer kilns, which were a Danish modification of an upright kiln originally developed in Germany were built. Constructed of locally made red brick, these kilns were utilized for the production of portland cement.

"By 1900, this region provided the nation with 75 percent of its cement and had been the scene of a number of technological breakthroughs like the development of the rotary kiln."

An 1881 history written by the company describes the equipment in the plant and some of the customers.

"In 1871, Saylor received the first American patent for Portland cement. Lehigh County was a natural spot for cement production. Cement is made from rocks containing lime, silica, and alumina; Lehigh County limestone “cement rock” contains all three ingredients. By 1900, the Lehigh Valley made 72% of Portland cement produced in this country." [AtlasObscura]

AtlasObscura

AtlasObscura

AtlasObscura

AtlasObscura

AtlasObscura, cropped

UncoveringPA
The Ironton Rail Trail runs adjacent to the kilns.

I looked for evidence of the quarries nearby. I quickly found these two.

Satellite

And then the more I looked, the more quarries I found, including an active one in the lower-left corner of this excerpt. And there is a Lafarge cement plant in the upper-right corner.

Satellite

That plant has three rotary kilns.

Satellite

Dixon, IL: 1914 St. Marys Cement Plant

Plant: (Satellite)

Limestone Quarry: (Satellite, note there is a conveyor belt that goes alongside the road to the cement plant.)

Street View, Sep 2022

Street View, Aug 2023

It looks like they have one long kiln and three short kilns.

Satellite

It is good to know of a secondary market for blast furnace slag.

StMaryCement

May 12, 2025:

Ed Pilar posted two photos with the comment: "May 12 2025 Dixon, IL On the Rock River at the Cement plant."

1
[It looks like they are removing the kilns. Just the end of one of the short kilns is visible. The most recent Google Earth image is May 2023, and it still has the kilns.
The St Marys website still lists Dixon as a location.]

2

I looked for rail service on a satellite map and could not find any. Now I'm surprised that the plant lasted until the 2020s. Buzzi Unicem was closed by 2013, and it did have rail service. A topo map shows that the plant used to have an industrial spur that connected with both railroads in town, but the spur did street running through Dixon on River Street. I'll bet the town was glad to see that spur disappear.

1950/64 Dixon Quad @ 62,500

The plant stopped production in 2018 because "the plant’s location was poor compared to other sites." [GlobalCement]

"The decision arrived after the plant was noted to be at a transportation disadvantage. The company’s five other cement plants are ideally located to take advantage of its customer base in the Great Lakes region." [cemnet]

St Mary's has plants on the Great Lakes and ships cement in freighters.

Ed Pilar posted two photos with the comment: "August 4 2025 Views of the Cement plant without the Smoke Stack on the Rock River near Dixon, IL."

1

2

Dave Kuntz posted
It would appear that the Alco at St Marys Cement in Dixon is gone at this point or at least very well hidden.

Austin Seaton: Scrapped you can see where it was beside the building. Cut up in March [2026].

rich Whittington commented on Dave's post
this was november of last year.

Waukegan, IL: Lafarge North America and National Gypsum

Lafarge: (Satellite)

Gypsum: (Satellite)

I think of Waukegan as having cute marinas on the lake shore. But it can handle freighters as well.

Bob Causey posted
The Sam Laud unloading at Lafarge North American in Waukegan Illinois.

Lafarge handles cement and cement is stored in silos, not a big pile out in the weather as in Bob's photo. So it is really unloading at National Gypsum. Fortunately, a freighter was unloading when the satellite went overhead.

Satellite

The dock was empty in all of the street views.

Street View, Aug 2019

York, PA: Pennsy Coaling Tower & Railyard, Lost/WM & Offices/Pennsy Depots and Pennsy Junction Tower

Coaling Tower: (Satellite)

WM Depot: (Satellite, my guess based on the photo and aerial below,)

Pennsy Depot: (Satellite)

Junction Tower: (Satellite)

Freight Houses: (Satellite)

Feed Mill: (Satellite)

Cement Plant: (Satellite)

Quarries and Lincoln Highway (US-30): (See below for satellite image)

WM = Western Maryland

Gary Pappy Heiland posted
PRR Ghost coal dock in York PA 1985.  Unlike the one in Renovo this one has been torn down.  The signal gantry is also gone in York.

Kurt Bell: Where exactly in York was this located?

Greg Halpin commented on Kurt's comment

Dennis DeBruler commented on Greg's comment
Thanks, that let me know where to look. https://maps.app.goo.gl/AFRHmtfJ2Xi2PEgZ8 Jan 1952 aerial photo

 

Greg Halpin commented on Dennis' comment

The railyard is intact because they did not remove tracks to make room for an intermodal yard. Instead, they used vacant land that was next to the yard.

1999/2001 York Quad @ 24,000

It looks like the intermodal yard is also used to transload lumber.

Street View, Nov 2021

Western Maryland Depot

𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻: 𝗣𝗲𝗻𝗻𝘀𝘆𝗹𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮 and Ohio posted
York, PA Train Depot • Circa early 1900s!
[I'm glad that some comments indicate that this was Western Maryland or I would have made the mistake of assuming it was Pennsy.]

Pennsy served this town from all four compass points, but Western Maryland came in from the west and terminated in this town. The WM tracks joined the Pennsy near Hokes Mill, and WM must have used trackage rights to access its depot downtown.

1954 West York and Work Quads @ 24,000

This shows the branch that went to York.

wmwestsub via Dennis DeBruler

I'm sure the building west of Roosevelt Ave. and north of the tracks is a depot. I'm just not sure whos depot it is. I though the building on the right side of this excerpt was also a depot because the roofline has some character. But it is too tall, and it looks like it is an apartment building that had some style. And was that an elegant courthouse just north of the apartments? They tore it down for a few houses. 

Jan 21, 1952 @ 17,000; AR1OX0000030043

Pennsy Depot

I noticed that the above depot was in the middle of industrial buildings, not the downtown. The downtown is east of the river. So I got an excerpt of that area. The apartment building is in the lower-left corner to correlate the excerpts.

Jan 21, 1952 @ 17,000; AR1OX0000030043

While checking out the freight houses in the aerial photo, I found this depot building. This was probably the Pennsy depot. The depot is on the left and two of the extant freight house are in the right background.

Street View, Jun 2024

You know that the southern freight house was an outgoing freight house because of all of the parallel parked boxcars waiting to be loaded.

Jan 21, 1952 @ 17,000; AR1OX0000030043

The two northern freight houses are now self-storage. But the southern freight house still handles freight between rail and trucks. Although the number of tracks has been greatly reduced.

Street View, Jun 2024

1942 Pennsy Junction Tower

And while looking at the freight houses, I found an extant junction tower. There were a lot more interlocking towers than roundhouses, but they are now about as rare.

Street View, Nov 2021

yorkblog
The developer in the area plans to preserve the building.

Lehigh Valley Railroad & Railroad Photography posted
My grandfather photographed the former Pennsylvania Railroad/Ma&Pa interlock tower at York, PA on March 6, 1979. Jack Koehler photo
Tim Shanahan shared

hmdb

"The York Interlocking Tower, located in Poorhouse Yard, is the point where the Northern Central Railroad, Western Maryland, Pennsylvania Railroad, and Maryland & Pennsylvania all converged. The tower is located along York Street near N. Queen Street. The area was called Poorhouse Yard due the presence of the York County Jail and Almshouse. The tower has been abandoned; however, Poorhouse Yard is still in use. It is here where York Railway and Norfolk Southern exchange cars.

"The Emons Logistics Services maintain several bulk transfer terminals in York County. The Lincoln Yard, which operates as a bulk terminal, is located in West Manchester Township. Hanover Yard is used for storage of plastics. North George Street handles the transfer of bulk agricultural products. Poorhouse Yard in York County serves as a classification area for freight transport cars. This yard processes about 6500 cars per year.

"The large building seen on the right in the photo below [above] is the original York County Jail behind which was the York County Almshouse. In 1855, Philadelphia architect Edward Haviland designed the York County Jail. The blue limestone walled enclosure to the rear still stands today. The blue limestone came from John Winter's quarry near York. Henry Kochenour of Conewago Township provided the sandstone for the front building, now gone and replaced with brick in 1907.

"In 1857, the poor house annual report stated that its occupants included 86 males, 56 females, and 15 children under the age of 12. The Almshouse maintained an early form of workfare. Residents worked on the adjacent farm or at an associated house of employment. According to the 1857 report, they produced 987 pounds of butter; 198 pair of shoes; 27 sunbonnets and 161 petticoats in the previous year. (Marker Number 6.)"

Hoke Feed Mill

I found this Hoke feed mill while looking for the depot.

Street View, Dec 2023

Photo, Aug 2020

Photo, Aug 2020

Cement Plant

While looking at the feed mill, I spotted some tall silos, so I checked them out. They are port of a cement plant. We get glimpses of the kiln in the background.

Street View, Jul 2024

Here is a satellite view of that kiln. I included the rail loadout area.

Satellite

Quarries

The cement plant would explain this quarry, which was the first thing I noted as I followed the WM tracks into town. The aqua blue pond on the right side of this excerpt was an active quarry on the 1954 topo map.

Satellite

Zooming out, there are other quarries in the area. And then I noticed that Lincoln Highway (US-30) runs through this area. Today's US-30 is a bypass, the highway originally went through town on Market Street.

Satellite