HURON – A Huron company that traces its origins to the days of the national struggle that was the Great Depression is looking to the future with the construction of a new large shop and office complex.
Located at the east entrance to town along Highway 14, the Asphalt Paving & Materials Co. building provides expanded shop space to accommodate all of the company’s equipment, said company president Mike Bartholow.
“It’s a good-sized space,” he said. “It’s already proven to be extremely useful.”
The shop measures 125-by-150 feet and the office space adds another 60-by-80 feet to the building, he said. Asphalt Paving & Materials Co. has a dozen full-time employees and 30 to 35 seasonal workers.
The business has a storied history; in fact, for a couple decades there were actually two companies operating out of the same structure because of the high volume of work.
“It all got started in the 1930s when my grandfather decided to take advantage of the money that was available to put people back to work during the ‘Dirty 30’s,’” said Bill Bartholow, chief executive officer who shares the same name as the founder.
“W.E. they called him. William Earl (Bartholow) was his name.”
When W.E.’s son, Cecil, got involved with his father, the decision was made to move the business from Spencer to Huron. It was about the time the country was entering World War II in the early 1940s.
At that time, asphalt was beginning to be a viable product.
“They decided to get into the asphalt business and it was pretty primitive to start with,” Bill Bartholow said. “They used to mix it out on the road with a road mixer.”
But the technology gradually improved and they were able to start using central mix plants of various different types, he said.
“Everything was really booming there for quite awhile,” he said. “They were building a lot of roads and doing a lot of paving. There were a lot of asphalt companies in South Dakota at that time, too, because everybody else jumped into it, too.”
By 1964, Bill’s father, Don Bartholow decided there was too much work for W.E. Bartholow & Son Construction Co., as customers were wanting small asphalt jobs done, typically for driveways and parking lots.
And so Don Bartholow formed a second business, Asphalt Paving & Materials Co.
In 1985, W.E. Bartholow & Son Construction sold out, leaving the one company to move forward.
“We continued to get bigger so we could do the highway work,” Bill Bartholow said.
A year ago, the Bartholows decided to invest in a new, much larger shop and office.
“Our company has grown over the years and we have just outgrown our facility here,” Mike Bartholow said. “Probably the biggest need was for more office space.”
But the company’s equipment was getting too large for the existing shop as well – a building constructed in the 1950s and added on to in the 1970s.
He said, for example, they were never able to get all of the pieces of the asphalt plant inside the shop to work on them.
“And now we can,” Mike Bartholow said. “We can bring every piece of the plant into the shop, get the doors shut and work on it. It’s a lot more efficient. It’s extremely nice to have.”
Growing up in the family business, he represents the fourth generation of Bartholows to run the company.
“We’re hoping to make it five,” Bill Bartholow said. “We’ve made a pretty good investment here and it would be nice to take it to five generations.”
Roger Larsen/Plainsman This is the new office space and shop that Asphalt Paving & Materials will call home. The new facility is located just west of the business’s previous site, on the south side of Highway 14 east of the James River.
