By Tina Fisher Cunningham
Fisher Forde Media
cement plant circa 1914
The Forde Files No. 149
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The Lehigh Hanson cement plant has been the employment anchor of Tehachapi life for more than 100 years. Three generations of some local families have worked at the facility. The Los Angeles Board of Public Works built the original cement plant to provide construction material for the Los Angeles Aqueduct that carries water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. Aqueduct project manager William Mulholland sited the plant at Monolith at the foot of the Tehachapi hills near deposits of high-grade limestone. Completed in 1908, the plant operated until 1914, when it closed upon completion of the aqueduct. Six years later, a company revived the plant and named it Monolith Portland Cement Company. The plant has grown to include a dust-capturing dome, a processing tower, a dramatic reduction in water usage, and a computer command center that monitors the hellish kiln heat needed to transform limestone into small black rocks called klinker, which is ground into a powder. Until 1972, the small company town of Monolith, located across the railroad tracks from the plant, provided housing for employees. In the photo above, the original plant is seen in the background behind the cattle. The photo belongs to Marcia Sommermeyer, whose great-grandfather was cattle rancher Will Cuddeback. The Cuddeback family owned large parcels of land, including the thousands of acres that now belong to the cement plant. The German Heidelberg Cement Group owns the plant. The silhouette of the plant has changed but the open field and grazing cattle remain the same.
