Cement Block & Tile Manufacturing
In 1950 Don McDougall purchased property off of Garland Street East backing onto the Mindemoya River.
The Block Plant was situated directly across the road from what once was Mae and Jack McGauley's house - which operated as The Maple Tree Inn.
Today the Block Plant would of sat at the corner of Garland and Myra Street.
The McDougall's also operated a general store, which was in the same building as the Cameron General Store.
Block Plant Information
Sometime in the fall of 1950, Don McDougall and his son N. McDougall went to Toronto to pick up the machinery and tile forms. During the same trip Mr. McDougall purchased a 3 ton, 1946 Ford truck to bring back.
The cement block machine itself, conveyor and mixer were open to the elements on a cement pad. Power source was an old motor, but due to the dependability and lack of power, it was replaced with a V-8 engine. The rock crusher and motor were mounted on an old truck frame. The motor for the crusher was a V-8, 1934 Ford from a car that Beverly "Bev" McFarlane was wrecking.
In 1951 construction was complete and Don started making cement blocks as well as culvert tile.
The dry kiln was made out of cement blocks, and was about 10 by 40 feet with big doors at both ends. The boiler that supplied the steam carried about 5 or 10 pounds of pressure. The old boiler was gotten from Albert Davis's Saw mill. Bill Blue supplied the wood. It was mostly scrub wood, cut four feet long from fallen trees. They called it "Tug Wood". Billy used to supply wood for the steam tugs that at one time ran out of the bay fishing.
Using the Dry Kiln for curing the cement blocks meant that they were cured in 6 hours. Ordinarily is took 28 days. It was quite a process. You could look in the kiln when it was operating and see the steam bubbling out of the blocks. Everything was done by hand. You carried it off of the machine into the kiln. Producing 600 blocks was a good day.
The Block plant was also equipped with a chimney block machine. The chimney blocks were heavier with more detail and sold for about $2.45 each.
When the kiln was not in use on the weekends, Albert Davis would bring green lumber to dry. Albert Davis ran a water powered mill on the flat rock behind the Providence Bay Cemetery, off of Garland Street East.