Sources and further reading

Where this entry comes from

Preston County Journal, March 4, 1909, p. 2, column 1, “Buckhorn Cement Works Will Resume Operations.”

Research notes

What the evidence establishes

The March 4, 1909 Journal article was checked against the digitized page. It says negotiations closed “last Friday” and the transfer took place Monday. Relative to the issue date, these would be February 26 and March 1, 1909. However, the item ends “—Ex.,” suggesting a reprint from another newspaper whose date is not identified. The entry therefore uses “By March 4, 1909” rather than treating March 1 as a confirmed transfer date.

The headline announces that operations will resume; the article describes planned repairs and a future restart. It does not establish the date when cement production actually resumed.

The article reports 1,500 barrels of daily capacity, 200 men on the payroll, and $250,000 in planned repairs. These are contemporary reported figures, not independently audited totals. The 1912 geological report gives an original Buckhorn capacity of 800 barrels and attributes an increase to 1,500 to Alpha. Read together, the accounts do not establish precisely when that increase was completed.

The newspaper also reports a purchase price of about $1 million and, with “It is said,” a federal order for Panama Canal cement. These claims require additional corroboration and are not treated here as independently established facts.

The National Register nomination corroborates the 1909 purchase and describes company housing and utilities. It does not establish that all of those improvements were completed in 1909.

The WVU photograph is cataloged under Alpha Cement Company. Its broad catalog range, ca. 1890–1940, does not establish when the photograph was taken; it is not presented as a photograph of the 1909 acquisition.