“The Big Giant” took Akron’s concrete industry to the next level.

In March 1950, the Botzum Bros. Co. unveiled an 85-foot mixing plant at North Arlington and East North streets. 

“Buy the concrete you’ll be proud to use,” the company advertised.

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A marvel of modern technology, the plant cost $100,000 to build (more than $1.1 million today) and cemented Botzum’s reputation as a giant in the building materials business.

Botzum Bros. mixed enough concrete to pave an 8-foot strip, 6 inches deep, from New York to San Francisco. The company employed hundreds of workers and manufactured concrete blocks by the millions. Its fleet of 15 red-and-white trucks crisscrossed Ohio for thousands of construction projects.

Conrad and Louise Botzum’s five sons — Charles, Harry, Albert, Joseph and Lewis — started the business in 1892. It began as a feed, seed and grain supplier on West Market Street, but branched out in unusual ways, including opening the Dreamland and Orpheum theaters in Akron and the Strand and Valentine theaters in Canton.

As Akron grew in the early 20th century, the Botzums added sand and gravel as a sideline about 1919 and constructed an office building at 100 N. High St. in the downtown section now known as Northside.

It built its first concrete mixing plant in 1927 at Arlington and North and became one of the first ready-mix concrete companies in the Midwest. The term “cement truck” was so new that the Beacon Journal didn’t even know what to call it.

“New type of concrete mixing machinery, which eliminates cluttering of streets with sand and gravel piles during construction, was put into service in Akron Saturday by Botzum Bros. Co.,” the newspaper reported Sept. 17, 1927.

“The new mixer is mounted on wheels and can be loaded at the company yards with sand, gravel and cement, taken to the job and the mixed concrete poured out.”

In 1950, Botzum Bros. constructed a new complex at 520 N. Arlington St. on the former site of the Old Forge Inn and Choo Choo Bar.

President Albert A. Hilkert, who had joined the company in 1913 and later married into the Botzum family, oversaw plans for the concrete mixing plant.

The towering contraption had a capacity of 700 cubic yards or 1,400 tons of concrete per day. Bucket elevators carried cement from a receiving hopper to a storage compartment at the top of the unit, which could hold 1,850 barrels. A steam unit allowed the production of heated concrete during winter.

A rubber conveyor belt, which extended from the receiving yard to the top of the mixing plant, fed the storage bins with aggregates. By pulling levers, an operator could pour any amount of cement, sand, gravel, slag or limestone into the mixing chamber.

“The ‘Big Giant,’ as we of the industry affectionately call this mechanical wizard, leaves nothing to chance when your concrete is prepared,” Botzum Bros. advertised. 

“Automatic controls do away with the possibility of any error. You are assured of your products receiving the proper amount of ingredients, pound by pound, so that top quality concrete results. For large or small orders, its efficiency is unsurpassed.”

The family-owned company operated a 42-acre sand and gravel pit at North and Dan streets, but by the end of the 1950s, the deposits were all but depleted. The business increasingly had to buy its sand and gravel on the open market.

Botzum Bros. also sold bricks, blocks, tiles, sewer pipes, plaster, asphalt roofing, coal, nails, wire fences, steel sashes and metals doors. 

The company’s concrete was used in everything from repairing locks on the Ohio & Erie Canal to improving Akron roads to developing commercial properties to building the All-America Bridge.

Eventually, though, it transformed from a company that mixed concrete to one that sold construction supplies.

The Big Giant went into a deep slumber, never to reawaken.

In 1987, Botzum Bros. sold its ready-mix trucks and batching operations to a West Virginia concrete company. The mixing plant was demolished by the early 1990s.

The Akron company’s focus became commercial hollow metal doors and frames, architectural wood doors and hardware.

Botzum Bros. Hardware LLC, formed in 2001, was its successor.

In January 2020, fourth-generation owner Al Hilkert, the great-grandson of company co-founder Lewis Botzum, sold the business to Cook & Boardman Group of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Cook & Boardman bills itself as “the nation’s premier provider” of architectural doors and frames, door hardware and related building specialty products.

“We are excited to welcome Botzum Bros. to the Cook & Boardman family of companies,” Chief Executive Officer Darrin Anderson announced. “We don’t take lightly that we are being entrusted with a fourth-generation family business and we look forward to providing their employees with additional resources and expanded opportunities as we grow in this major market.”

Operations continue at 520 N. Arlington St.

Botzum Bros. no longer manufactures concrete, but it was built on a solid foundation 130 years ago.

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com.

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