In 1903 Teddy Roosevelt fathered the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, and Orville and Wilbur Wright sired the airplane. In 1903 the aggregate industry also had a birth of sorts. And like the department of labor and air travel, the industry's baby has changed a great deal during the past 100 years.

Rock Products' founder and first editor, E.H. Defebaugh convinced 45 quarry owners to come to Chicago on May 19, 1903 for the first official meeting of the National Quarry Owners Association. Although many of the original members were from the Midwest, one member traveled from as far as Arizona and another from Nova Scotia — quite a distance given that the Wright brothers hadn't yet tapped the idea of frequent-flyer miles. Defebaugh wrote that there were nearly 100 interested quarry owners, but many could not attend because of the travel distance and their operation's busy season.

The NQOA wasn't the first attempt to organize the industry. Many of the details of that first organization are unavailable. It is clear that the effort was only short-lived. But pressures from growing organized labor movements and a strained relationship with the railroads prompted quarry owners to make a more concerted effort to organize.

“Associations are formed because there are problems — issues — and companies need to pull together to meet them,” says Charlie Hawkins, National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association's executive vice president and COO. Hawkins also was president of the former National Aggregate Association. “The first association was formed because of onerous shipping and safety regulations, and government is still trying to impose itself on us.”

Despite this need to work together, coming together was not automatic.

“There's background competition in some areas,” says A. Russell Webster, president of Webster Associates in Rumford, R.I. “But with environmental compliance and other regulations, our interests are so alike that it's very helpful to work as one.”

Webster hits upon one of the largest stumbling blocks to getting the NQOA off the ground. “In visiting some of the stone-producing sections of the United States, I find a lack of cooperative effort to get the real value of the quarried stone,” Defebaugh wrote in 1903. “This is due largely to petty jealousies and a lack of harmony among operators.”

But Defebaugh and the 45 original members pulled it off. Defebaugh used Rock Products as his bully pulpit to solicit support for the NQOA, and the group survived its petty jealousies. Since then, the NQOA has been reformed and reorganized several times before taking its present shape as the NSSGA.

Three associations sprouted up during the World War I era. In 1911 the National Sand and Gravel Producers Association formed. In 1917 the National Sand and Gravel Association formed. And in 1918 the National Crushed Stone Association formed.

One of the biggest coups for the industry associations came during the Eisenhower Administration. The National Crushed Stone Association and the National Limestone Institute helped push the Highway Act of 1956.

“They certainly contributed to that, and it boosted business for companies so much, nothing else was ever even close,” says Bernard Grove. Grove retired in 1997 as CEO of Genstar Stone Products (now Lafarge), in Herndon, Va. and is a life member of the NSSGA “It was the first really major federal program.”

The Highway Act was a plan to lay 41,000 miles of interstate by 1969. The federal government funded the program at $2.2 billion per year, with word that the states were to ante up any other needed cash.

The 1950s also saw associations push for a change in the depletion allowance. William Hole Jr., former president of American Aggregates of Greenville, Ohio, says the associations did some stellar lobbying on that issue.

“We were good friends with Bob Taft, the Ohio senator,” Hole says. That relationship wound up installing the 5% depletion allowance in place of the one-cent-per-ton cost depletion. In fact, the deal worked out as a 5% depletion allowance for sand, gravel and crushed stone, and a 15% depletion allowance for chemical-grade stone. The result was a hefty tax saving.

“There were efforts, every eight years or so, to do away with percentage depletion, but we successfully fought that,” says Hole, a former NSGA chairman.

The 1960s may have been the decade of love for some, but not for those in the aggregate industry. Hawkins remembers the late '60s as a low point for some of the memberships.

“If you dredged or dug sand and gravel, you didn't want anything to do with quarry owners, and quarry owners weren't into sand and gravel,” Hawkins says. “It was just a mind-set. They looked down their noses at each other. It was dredging versus drilling and explosives. Today, people are concerned about aggregates — whatever's best for everybody. It's an economic thing. A lot of companies had started out as family-owned, and that's how that kind of partisanship happened.”

That decade also saw federal regulation grow, which drew the ire of at least one association. Vincent Ahearn, NSGA's retiring managing director, warned of this growing problem at the group's annual convention in 1968.

“Management must be concerned with the quality of government at all levels and must carefully maintain historical perspective and a sense of humor,” Ahearn said. “State sovereignty is in a steady decline, and the governors are the pallbearers.”

But the feds also helped the industry. When it became doubtful that the Highway Act would be completed, President Johnson approved a plan to add 1,500 miles to the original 41,000.

Webster remembers the '70s as high times for the NCSA, when Rick Renninger was president and Webster worked on the environmental committee. “The Clean Air Act passed in 1970, and the associations (NCSA, NLI, and NSGA) geared up the industry to help,” he says. “Everybody was working around the clock. I developed a lot of friends in those days.”

NCSA and NLI merged in 1984 creating the National Stone Association. A year later, NSA's co-presidents both resigned — personality differences were cited as the cause.

In 1987, NSGA changed its name to the National Aggregates Association. And a year later, NAA and NSA discussed merging — something they would do several more times.

But in April 2000 on the heels of several failed attempts, the two heavy weights got it right and merged. It took only five months to iron out enough of the details to bring NSA and NAA together into what is now the NSSGA. One of the final details to be resolved was the dues structure. Starting this year, the NSSGA abandon the dual dues structure it put in place after the merger and adopted a single dues system — a sign the merger was now complete.

There's no guarantee that either the airplane, the Department of Labor or the NSSGA will still exist in 2103. But if they do, it's a good bet they will change as much if not more than they did in their first 100 years.

Ann Helming contributed to this story

1903 Charter Members List

• Perry - Matthews - Buskirk Stone Co.; Chicago
• Wallace Stone & Lime Co.; Bay Port, Mich.
• Aberdeen Granite Co.; Aberdeen, S.D.
• Broken Sword Stone Co.; Bucyrus, Ohio
• Ingalls Lime and Stone Co.; Ingalls, Ind.
• Wm. Bannerman & Co.; Berlin, Wisc.
• Hollensbe Stone Co.; West Port, Ind.
• Carl T. Wells; Redan, Ga.
• Davis & Mayne; Blue Springs, Neb.
• The Climax Stone Co.; Bedford, Ind.
• Georgia Quincy Granite Co.; Macon, Ga.
• Gillen Stone Co.; Green Bay, Wisc.
• Phoenix Stone & Lime Co.; Kansas City, Mo.
• Quincy Granite Quarries Co.; Quincy, Mass.
• Bellevue Stone Co.; Bellevue, Ohio
• Maxwell Stone Co.; Ludlow Falls, Ohio
• Wabash Stone Co.; Fort Wayne, Ind.
• Chesapeake Stone Co.; Ashland, Ky.
• B. N. Arquitt & Sons; Farley, Iowa
• Brayton & Kerr, Kankakee, Ill.
• Rumer & Blythe; Fulton, Ohio
• Hillis Stone Co.; Greencastle, Ind.
• A. A. Magee; Greensburg, Ind.
• Mills Bros.; Springfield, Ohio
• E. B. Vanderhoof & Co.; El Dorado, Kan.
• Alexandria Stone & Quarry Co.; Alexandria, Ind.
• Le Grand Quarry Co.; Marshalltown, Iowa
• The D. C. Statler, Co.; Piqua, Ohio
• McLeod & Embree; Pugwash, N.S. Canada
• Holes Bros.; St. Cloud, Minn.
• Preston Blue Stone Co.; Rowlesburg, Va.
• J. M. Leach & Co.; Kokomo, Ind.
• Rucker Stone Co.; Greenfield, Ohio
• Arizona Granite Co.; Phoenix
• V. A. Biggs; Iowa Falls, Iowa
• Cleveland Stone Co.; Cleveland
• Perry-Matthews-Buskirk Stone Co.; Bedford, Ind.
• Consolidated Stone Co.; Bedford, Ind.
• Bedford Quarries Co.; Bedford, Ind.
• J. W. Kerrick; Elizabethtown, Ky.
• Independent Stone Co.; Cleveland
• Peddicord & Son; Baltimore
• Jas. Bruce Quarries; Joliet, Ill.
• Laurel Stone Co.; Laurel, Ind.
• Maone Stone Co.; Chicago