The Cement Plant — Tunnel book structure with gate opening. 7.5” x 4” x 2.25″ closed, opens to 20”. Canson Edition paper, museum board, Velcro tabs. Manipulated digital images. Inkjet printed.

Our family moved into company housing at the Universal Atlas Cement plant in Independence, Kansas, in the summer of 1945. My mother raised five children in company housing and waged an endless battle with the dust. My father worked in the power house where the plant generated its own electricity. I have fond memories of growing up in this place. I remember the sounds of the plant – the ongoing hum of the plant machinery and the sound of the dinky trains as they brought limestone from the quarry or red clay from the pits near the Verdigris River. In the afternoon, dynamite blasts set off in the quarry caused the windows in our house to rattle. The houses were moved into town in 1959. The plant fell silent when production ended in 2008 and it was razed in 2011.