Farwell's Failed Portland Cement Company

Josiah Littlefield was president of the Portland Cement Company and George W. Graham, T.F. Bingham and William Fuller served as the board of directors and primary investors. The company was meant to create jobs and income after the decline of the lumber industry. The discovery of a new process in creating lime cement greatly reduced the price and availability of the product, and the factory was a failure.

The failed Portland Cement Company intended to manufacture cement from marl deposits from Littlefield Lake in Gilmore Township, Isabella County. Josiah Littlefield owned most of the property surrounding the 183-acre lake at the time.

According to Littlefield he lost all of his saving in his cement company investment. Work had begun on a railroad to the lake and most of the buildings were completed to begin business before it was realized the venture would not be successful.

Littlefield was a pioneer of the Farwell area. He graduated in 1871 from the University of Michigan with a degree in civil engineering. Littlefield was called to help survey a better route from the Ionia to Houghton Lake state road while still at university by his uncle Edmund Hall. He returned after graduation to survey Farwell and made his home the rest of his life. He was successful in lumbering, ranching, and many other business endeavors, except of course, the Farwell Portland Cement Company.

In 1902 the Clare Sentinel reported it the company organizing with a capitalization of $350,000 (35,000 shares at $10 each).

 Clare Sentinel, October 9, 1902

Capital is also coming in from outside and there seems to be a promising outlook for all those who are thus investing their money. Experience shows seventy cents per barrel the average cost of production in a plant putting out 600 barrels per day. A conservative average selling price at the factory is $1.60 per barrel (it is now $2.20 per barrel at the factory) leaving a profit of 80 cents per barrel. Suppose that 4o cents be allowed for a sinking fund for retiring and bonds issued and for interest on bonds and for repairs and contingent expenses, there will still be a net gain of 50 cents on every 70 cents of cost of production, If 300 days per year turn out each day 600 barrels, 50 cents on every barrel will give a gain, of $90,000 or a dividend of 25 per cent on a capital stock of $350.000. R. F. Wentz of Bethlehem, Pa., has been engaged as the company’s engineer and is on the ground superintending the work now in progress. It is proposed that work already under way this fall will he pushed forward to the completion of the plant next summer. A careful investigation of the cement business has been vigorously pushed by the company for some time and as a result of recent practical experiences in other factories some new equipment’s not found in any cement plant thus far will be added to the Farwell plant. In Clare a practical test of the utility of cement was recently noticed. Senator Doherty had constructed a wall four feet high and between two openings for doors a portion had been constructed plumb, but when set, two jack screws, applied to the bottom of the wall, did the rest and now the wall is plumb and none the worse for the pressure of two jack screws. Ludington is erecting a modern hotel of cement. Right here in our little city no less than 1100 barrels have been sold within the last year. The uses of cement are multiplying rapidly and the demand for it is increasing so much more rapidly than the supply that the price keeps going higher. Michigan is producing barely ten per cent of the cement product of the United States but with her wealth of marl deposits in and around her multitudinous lakes of glacial formation, there is every reason to believe that she will greatly increase that percentage and before long the Farwell cement plant will be making its contribution to Michigan’s output.