Company History

1909	Birmingham Slag Company, a family-owned construction materials company, is founded.
1916	Charles Lincoln Ireland, a banker from Ohio, purchases Birmingham Slag and sends his sons, Glenn, Eugene and Barney to Birmingham to manage the new business.
1932	Birmingham Slag remains profitable under the Ireland’s leadership until 1932, when the world economy is affected by the Great Depression. After the depression, Birmingham Slag Company begins to grow in earnest.
1939	Birmingham Slag becomes a major supplier to Tennessee Valley Authority projects.
1942	Birmingham Slag begins a three-year contract providing construction materials for the war effort including Oak Ridge, Redstone Arsenal and other major military projects.
1944	Birmingham Slag enters into a joint venture with Lambert Brothers, Inc., one of the South’s largest aggregates businesses located in Knoxville, Tennessee. The strategic joint venture provides significant and profitable growth for Birmingham Slag.
1950	Birmingham Slag has 600 employees, sales of more than $20 million, and net profits between $1.5 million and $2 million per year.
1951	Glenn Ireland’s son Charles is elected president of Birmingham Slag. Tremendous opportunities are envisioned under the Eisenhower administration’s Federal Highway Program. The company expands rapidly in order to become a major supplier of aggregates called for under the highway program.
1956	Bernard A. Monaghan, a prominent lawyer and a former Rhodes Scholar joins Birmingham Slag to help engineer a merger with the Vulcan Detinning Company of Sewaren, New Jersey. Birmingham Slag becomes a publicly traded company under Vulcan Detinning’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The new company is renamed Vulcan Materials Company and has access to the capital markets that will help it grow and prosper.
1957	Vulcan Materials Company asks stockholders to approve a merger with nine companies at the same time – Union Chemicals, Lambert Brothers and seven other aggregates or related corporations. Fortune magazine observes that the prospectus issued for the transaction is one of the most complex ever printed.
1957	Vulcan’s Chemicals Division is formed as a result of the merger with Union Chemicals and Materials Corporation.
1958	Bernard Monaghan becomes executive vice president of Vulcan Materials Company, and is later elected president and CEO of the Company. A decentralized organizational structure is developed creating nine operating divisions and a corporate office.
1959	Vulcan purchases W.E. Graham & Sons, a North Carolina family-owned aggregates and general contracting firm.
1968	Vulcan builds a world class chlorinated organic chemical plant on greenfield site in Geismar, Louisiana.
1975	Vulcan’s Chemicals Division moves its headquarters from Wichita, Kansas, to Birmingham, Alabama.
1976	Vulcan forms Saudi Arabian joint venture to supply aggregates, asphalt, and ready-mix.
1980	Vulcan acquires the Port Edward, Wisconsin, chloralkali plant from BASF.
1981	Company-wide sales reach $783 million ranking Vulcan Materials Company 367 in the Fortune 500.
1981	Vulcan’s Chemicals Division begins using the trade name Vulcan Chemicals.
1984	Vulcan constructs and operates the first commercial-size membrane cell chloralkali facility in the U.S. at its Wichita, Kansas, plant.
1987	Vulcan acquires White’s Mines, Inc. and affiliated companies, greatly expanding Texas operations.  Vulcan Sells detinning and related metals businesses.
1987	Vulcan and its Mexican partner, Grupo ICA, form the Crescent Market Companies to produce high quality limestone at a quarry on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico for shipment to various markets primarily along the U.S. Gulf Coast. The joint venture includes a shipping company and a U.S.-based sales distribution company.
1988	Vulcan Chemicals becomes a major supplier to silicones industry with purchase of Vista’s methyl chloride business.
1990	In its largest acquisition to date, Vulcan acquires the massive Reed Quarry, near Paducah, Kentucky. In addition to added capacity and reserves, the Reed acquisition gives Vulcan access to new stone markets via barge shipments along the Mississippi River and Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.
1992	Vulcan Chemicals achieves ISO 9002 registration at all chloralkali sites.
1992	Vulcan acquires Olin’s sodium chlorite business and constructs the largest U.S. sodium chlorite plant at the Wichita chloralkali facility.
1994	Vulcan acquires Callaway Chemical Company from Exxon and forms the Performance Systems Business Unit within the Chemicals Division.
1998	Vulcan enters into a joint venture with Mitsui and begins construction of a new membrane chloralkali facility and a facility expanding production of ethylene dichloride at the Geismar, Louisiana plant.
1999	Vulcan acquires CalMat, Inc., expanding the Company’s aggregates operations into California, Arizona and New Mexico and making Vulcan one of the nation’s leading producers of hot-mix asphalt and ready-mixed concrete.
2000	Existing businesses in Vulcan’s Performance Systems Business Unit are combined to create Vulcan Chemical Technologies. Vulcan’s Chloralkali Business Unit retains the Vulcan Chemicals trade name.
2000	Vulcan begins construction of new plant in Geismar, Louisiana, to produce 240fa, a feedstock for a new generation of ozone-friendly fluorocarbons used in insulation and construction foam products.
2000	Vulcan acquires Tarmac America’s aggregates operations, significantly extending the geographic scope of Vulcan’s operations in the eastern United States.
2001	Vulcan acquires its partner’s interests in the Crescent Market Companies, an international joint venture that produces aggregates in the Yucatan Peninsula and transports and sells them in various markets primarily along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
2003	Divests Performance Chemicals assets, except the sodium chlorite business, to ALTIVIA Corporation, Kemira Oy and Lynx Chemical Group.
2005	Vulcan divests Vulcan Chemicals to Occidental Chemical Corporation. The sale includes chloralkali plants in Wichita, Kansas, Geismar, Louisiana, and Port Edwards, Wisconsin.
2007	Vulcan celebrates its 50th anniversary as a publicly held company. In November, Vulcan acquires Florida Rock Industries, Inc. in the largest acquisition in Vulcan’s 50-year history.