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In 1876, Lucius Garland Everist started selling retail coal in Havana, Illinois. The big railroads were moving quickly through the western half of the country, and he moved his young family to Sioux City, Iowa in 1888. Seeing opportunity in the frontier river town, he expanded the business first into coal mining and then to building supplies and materials. By the time the Panama Canal opened in 1912, his son Hubert Harpham Everist took over a business that was ready for change.
Equally ambitious and adventurous, H.H. Everist set out to be a road-builder and railroader. With the advent of automobiles in western Iowa, the need for roads was immediate. To fill the demand for material to build them, a quarry in Dell Rapids, South Dakota was purchased, followed by land for sand and gravel in Hawarden, Iowa. Both deposits were on rail, making delivery of a heavy bulk product economically feasible.
In 1946, a new generation of Everists were employed in both the contracting and the materials businesses. The post-war surge in heavy construction meant continuous work throughout the country in the form of interstate highways, irrigation canals, earthfill dams and airfields. The L.G. Everist business grew into the material producer of choice for on-site production throughout the Midwest and Mountain states. The company built it's reputation for being able to meet demanding specifications and time frames at competitive prices.
Since 2003, the fourth generation of Everists have carried on the tradition of quality.
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