Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Knappenberger, H. L. 1886 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com May 25, 2007, 2:04 pm Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company H. L. KNAPPENBERGER. Among the thriving industries of the Pacific northwest is that of the Oregon Portland Cement Company, of which H. L. Knappenberger is one of the officials, bringing to bear in the discharge of his executive duties the knowledge and wisdom acquired by broad experience in the business. The corporation maintains its headquarters in Portland and occupies a suite of offices on the eleventh floor of the Wilcox building. A son of Alexander and Mary Ellen (Weidner) Knappenberger, he was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1886 and his father was also a native of the Keystone state. Alexander Knappenberger followed the profession of engineering and was employed in the first cement plant in the United States. The business was founded by David O. Saylor, a pioneer cement manufacturer, who organized the Saylor Portland Cement Company of Coplay, Pennsylvania, in 1871. Alexander Knappenberger played an important part in the development of the industry and aided in building large cement plants throughout the eastern part of the United States as well as in Canada. He attained the venerable age of eighty- seven years, passing away in 1928. H. L. Knappenberger received a public school education and his first position was with the Bonneville Portland Cement Company, now out of existence. For five years he was with the Atlas Portland Cement Company and then went to La Salle, Illinois, as chemist for the Marquette Portland Cement Company, with which he spent three years. On the expiration of that period he entered the service of the British Columbia Portland Cement Company in the capacity of chemical engineer and later was made superintendent. In 1923 he came to the Rose city as manager of the Sun Portland Cement Company, which in 1926 was absorbed by the Oregon Portland Cement Company, capitalized at three million dollars. Since 1926 Mr. Knappenberger has been secretary, treasurer and sales manager of the corporation. The other officers are R. P. Butchart, of British Columbia, president; H. A. Ross, vice president, also of British Columbia; L, C, Newlands, vice president and general manager; D. H. Leche, general superintendent and purchasing agent; and T. G. Ludgate, chief chemist. The following description of the business was written by Fred Lockley and published in the Oregon Daily Journal of March 21, 1916: “After three years of waiting the Oregon Portland Cement Works at Oswego, just south of the city limits, will be completed and put in operation on or about April 10. Its output at first will be one thousand barrels a day, but it will have a capacity of twelve hundred barrels, and may be run to that limit if necessity requires. “The big undertaking, soon to be active, was begun in 1911 but lack of funds delayed construction until a year or two later, when Aman Moore, long interested in the venture, and a man of experience in cement plant construction, took hold of the work. Since then it has been pushed with vigor, and will be ready for operation as stated. “The magnitude of this enterprise will be a surprise to those unacquainted with cement manufacture. It will be found so much greater than fancy has pictured it and so different from the uninitiated’s conception that the visitor will simply stand and wonder how so much has so silently been accomplished. There has been no noise, save that made by the workmen in the plant’s construction. There has been no ‘spread-eagleism.’ There has been no beating of tomtoms nor blare of trumpets. Mr. Moore has pursued the even tenor of his way patiently, vigorously and zealously. “In building for the work before this corporation the management looked hundreds of years into the future. Construction of the plant would require so great an outlay of money that its future must be provided for, and to this end five hundred and forty acres of ground containing immense lime rock ledges were secured at Roseburg, nine hundred and seven acres at Dallas, five hundred and twenty-four acres at Rufus and one hundred and eighty-seven acres at Markham, all in Oregon, in addition to the forty-three acres for the plant site at Oswego. Four deposits have been opened up on the Roseburg and Dallas tracts and, without disturbing the other holdings of the company, these will afford material for operation for a hundred years or so, says Mr. Moore. “At Roseburg four and a half miles of standard gauge railroad track have been completed, and three-quarters of a mile of narrow gauge at Dallas. The Roseburg standard gauge will enable Southern Pacific cars, constructed with copper bottoms, to receive the rock from the one thousand-ton rock bins beneath which they will pass, and the same arrangements will prevail at Dallas, the narrow gauge cars filling the bins. On arriving at the Oswego plant the rock will be discharged into the big hopper from the bottom of the cars and then automatically fed to the monster pulverizing machine which will reduce it to particles about the size of a goose egg. The rock from Roseburg and Dallas, when finally reduced to powder, will be scientifically mixed, the character of one being required in the other in order to form a combination necessary for the best grade of cement. A chemist will be constantly on duty making tests, so that no mistake will be made in the mixing. The Roseburg rock is described as pure limestone, or marble, and contains about ninety- eight per cent of carbonate of lime, and that of Dallas is denominated agillaceous limestone, containing sixty per cent carbonate of lime. “Landing at the Oswego works, the two materials to be ground separately as stated, will be dumped into a No. 7½ gyratory crusher and in pieces about two and one-half inches in diameter will be carried to and deposited in reinforced concrete rock silos, of which there are ten, each having a capacity of twelve hundred and fifty tons. In a tunnel beneath these silos is a belt conveyor, and the broken rock drawn from them is carried and discharged into an elevator car and from it again discharged into rock storage bins, the Roseburg product into one and the Dallas rock into another. Underneath these bins are located immense automatic scales and these will weigh out the exact amount of Roseburg and Dallas rock required for the mixture of the two. The broken rock now goes to other storage bins, located over the preliminary grinding komimeters, then to the trix separating machine, which takes out all over-coarse particles, after which it is returned to the komimeter, reduced to pass through a thirty mesh screen, and passes along to the cylped tube mill, where the finishing grinding is done. Water is added in the tube mill and the powdered rock comes forth in mud form, thus eliminating the dust, which has, until recently, made cement factories a horror to communities for miles around their location. This is a German invention, and cement factories may now be located alongside drygoods stores without injury to the goods. “The ground stuff is now discharged into one of three storage tanks, for testing, one for discharging into, one for drawing out, and one for the chemist. The mixture now goes into a large correction tank. All these tanks are supplied with agitation, which keep the material constantly stirring, and by means of the correction tank the chemist has opportunity to time and reckon the ingredients to within one-tenth of one per cent. If the tests are too high, low material is added and if too low, high, etc. The correction tank holds one thousand barrels, and once the proper mixture is secured, all is automatically agitated until perfect uniformity is attained, A mighty air compressor now pumps the slury or mud into the kiln department underneath. The kiln is a cylinder nine to ten feet in diameter and two hundred and ten feet long. It is made of one inch boiler plate and supported on two sets of roller bearings. This kiln is lined with nine-inch fire brick and its weight is four hundred tons. Think of it, a cylinder two hundred and ten feet long, weighing four hundred tons and constantly revolving, the cement passing from the large to the smaller end and emerging in red hot condition. The cylinder is set on an incline, so the cement passes through it of its own motion. “At the discharge end of the kiln are located two massive oil burners, consuming three hundred barrels of oil daily, and they generate a temperature of three thousand degree. This heat and the revolving kiln cause the slury to form into balls about the size of large marbles. A complete chemical change has taken place in the rock dumped into the hopper from the cars nearly a quarter of a mile away, and automatically carried to this point. It has lost about forty per cent of its weight and is now in the form of carbon dioxide. The cement clinkers, or slag, are discharged from the kiln at white heat into a rotary cooler through which a current of air is forced by a large rotary fan, Coming forth, the clinkers are cool enough to be held in the hand and become a dark, hard slag, which, except for pulverizing, is the finished cement. Again these clinkers are started on a journey, by another belt conveyor, to a clinker storage silo, from which they are drawn through a valve onto still another belt conveyor and carried to the cement grinding department for preliminary grinding by the komimeter and finished in the cylped tube mill, from which they come so fine as to sift through a one hundred mesh, and ninety per cent through a two hundred mesh sieve. This finished product is now elevated to the storage silos, from which it is drawn and sacked for shipment. “The buildings of the company cover practically ten acres of ground. The rock travels eastward several hundred feet from where it is dumped into the hopper, to be cracked into egg-size pieces, then journeys southward about another three hundred feet through the two hundred and ten foot kiln and silos, without being touched by human hand. Twenty-five men on each shift will turn out one thousand barrels of cement per day, and their only work will be to see that the machinery is running smoothly. They will perform no manual labor whatever and it is understood that the plant will run on two twelve-hour shifts. It has a capacity of twelve hundred barrels and is so built that other one thousand-barrel units can be added at little cost. “The company will maintain its own machine, blacksmith and carpenter shops and these buildings, like the plant itself, are all of concrete as well as the office structure. Not a dollar’s worth of anything about the premises can be injured by fire, therefore insurance will not be necessary. The three- story hotel and bunk houses for employes only are of wood construction and will accommodate two hundred persons. Power to operate the works will be provided by the Portland Railway, Light & Power Company and delivered in about fifty-six thousand volts. The company will have its own transformers and will reduce this to four hundred and fifty volts, feeding its thirty motors, with a capacity of fourteen hundred horse power. “The corporation has its own water front and can ship its product by boat to all points on the Willamette, Columbia and Snake rivers, the selection of the site at Oswego being made for this reason. This is the first effort made in the cement line to keep Oregon money in the state. . . The pyramids of Egypt were the first great concrete structures and today they are as perfect as ever. This ingredient, when rightly used, is practically indestructible. A cement sidewalk on the west side of Second street, between Morrison and Yamhill, in Portland has been down for more than forty years and is yet perfect.” The same methods of manufacture are utilized in the Lime plant of the Oregon Portland Cement Company with one exception, namely, the use of powdered coal as a fuel instead of oil. The Oswego factory is now equipped to turn out twelve hundred barrels of cement per day and the combined daily capacity of the two plants is twenty- five hundred barrels. The output is sold to dealers and contractors and distributed only throughout Oregon. More than two hundred persons are required to carry on this industry and in its operation maximum efficiency has been secured with a minimum expenditure of time, labor and material. Controlled by men of broad vision, keen sagacity and high ideals, the corporation has put service first and profits last, thus proving that successful business is built on a basis of mutual benefits. In 1912 Mr. Knappenberger was married to Miss Kathryn Doyle, of La Salle, Illinois, and they have become the parents of three sons: John, Robert and Allan. The Portland Chamber of Commerce numbers Mr. Knappenberger among its enterprising members and his social nature finds expression in his connection with the Lake Oswego Country Club. Earnest and purposeful, he owes his rise in the business world to concentrated effort, combined with the ability to meet and master difficult situations, and his executive force and carefully formulated plans have constituted essential factors in the development of the industry which he represents. His demeanor is marked by courtesy and consideration for the rights and privileges of others and during the period of his residence in Portland he has won a large circle of loyal friends. Additional Comments: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Pages 307-310 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/multnomah/bios/knappenb363gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/orfiles/ File size: 14.2 Kb