Ash Grove

One of the most noticeable landmarks when one approaches the town of Louisville would have to be the Ash Grove cement plant, its gray concrete silos and furnaces can be seen from miles away. While perhaps not the most flattering building in Louisville, the Ash Grove cement factory has played an important role in the history and survival of the town of Louisville. The cement plant played a particularly important role in the survival of Louisville during the Great Depression in the 1930s by keeping much of the town employed. The Ash Grove cement plant is still active to this day and is still one of the major commodities of the town.  

Since the factory’s construction in 1929 and owned by Thomas Sunderland, both the town of Louisville and Ash Grove cement factory have had mutually beneficial relationships. Ash Grove not only had customers in the nearby cities of Omaha and Lincoln, but also access to the large formations of limestone, shale, clay, and sandstone close to the plant. The four key ingredients to make Ash Grove’s secret formula for Portland cement. While Louisville provided a sizable workforce to work in the factory, in return the town and citizens saw a new housing subdivision, better electrical power, access to natural gas, a new bridge over the Platte River, and a new railroad line close to town.

However, like all businesses during the Great Depression, the company and employees still suffered. But unlike many other businesses during the Great Depression, they managed to keep all of their employees fairly consistently throughout the recession. Although this wasn’t without challenges, while they were able to keep their employees, but did cut their wages from 35 cents to 22 ½ cents an hour. 

This was impressive as during the depression the cement plant was only running at 50% of its capacity. But the plant was unable to pay their employees full time, so most workers at Ash Grove were only working part time. Much of this also came at the coast of Ash Grove’s original plant that was operating in Missouri to be shut down, dismantled, and sold. Primarily due to lack of resources. Leaving the town of Ash Grove with ¾ of the population unemployed, having to resort to dairy farming to provide for their families. 

The other major hurdle the company and employees would have to face was the collapse of the Bank of Commerce in March of 1933. After closing its doors during the national bank holiday never reopening afterwards, Ash Grove’s payroll was in immediate jeopardy. However, they managed to avoid disaster through money sent from their office in Chanute, Kansas. With this influx of money, they were able to quickly negotiate a check cashing policy with the Home State Bank, the only remaining bank in Louisville during the depression.

When WWII broke out, Ash Grove found themselves losing employees who were being drafted or willingly joined. Including Sunderland’s son who had worked at the company for 17 years left on leave to serve in the navy, while Sunderland’s other son Robert was already in the army. Despite this cutback on manpower the company was still able to complete government contracts as well as hold jobs open for the men overseas when they returned. 

Despite Ash Grove's struggles and shortcomings during the recession, the company’s ability to keep their employees was one of the major reasons the town of Louisville was able to survive the Great Depression. Able to keep many in Louisville employed when the national unemployment rate was 25%. The Louisville Weekly Courier went as far as saying that Ash Grove was the reasons Louisville enjoyed no unemployment in 1935. The Ash Grove cement plant still operates to this day and is known by the local community to be one of the primary reasons the town of Louisville didn’t fade away during the Great Depression. 

Forss, Amy Helene. "Economic survival of Louisville, Nebraska during the Great Depression". (University of Nebraska Lincoln 2012). 41-48,

Forss, Amy Helene. The Ash Grove Lime and Portland Cement Company and Louisville, Nebraska, 1926-1955. Order No. EP75549, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, 2000.

Louisville Weekly Courier, 29 March 1935, p. 1.

Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), January 1, 1929: 1. Readex: America's Historical Newspapers.

Skalak, Mary. History of Cass County, Nebraska. Vol. 1. (Curtis Media, 1989), 224-245.