Ross Concrete

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Pictured here in 1939, Ross Concrete & Mortar Inc. was
 located at the foot of 20th Street on the Ohio River.

File Photo | The Herald-Dispatch

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HUNTINGTON — For more than 30 years, Ross Concrete & Mortar Inc.,
 located at the foot of 20th Street on the Ohio River,
 built much of Huntington’s infrastructure.

As J. Jay Ross, the company’s president, explained in a 1939
 interview with The Herald-Dispatch, “We purchased a
similar firm in 1933, changed the name and
immediately undertook a
major expansion.”

The company produced ready-mixed concrete and mortar
 and dispatched it to job sites via a fleet of more than
a dozen trucks. It employed 30 to 40 men.

“We furnished 50% of the concrete for the city’s central floodwall,”
Ross said, “furnished it all for the 29th Street overhead bridge,
 the new Ohio River road and the 1st Street underpass,
one of the finest I have ever seen.”

Ross also pointed with pride to the public housing projects then
under construction by the Huntington Housing Authority, the
new Huntington East High School, other schools and
 various projects at St. Mary’s Hospital, International
 Nickel and the West Virginia Rail Co.

But 50% of the company’s business, Ross said, didn’t involve
 large construction projects but “small jobs such as house
 foundations, sidewalks and the like. We are interested
 in and prepared to furnish prompt work
 on any job — large or small.”

According to corporate records in the West Virginia Secretary
 of State’s office, Ross Concrete went out of business in 1965.

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Note:  This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Feb. 21, 2023.

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