Page 7 - GC Nov-Dec 2022

Kahles built rock solid concrete company in Buffalo

y bride and I have been look-
Ming into building a cottage on
Canandaigua Lake and all the mate-
rials needed to do so. Besides what
we knew we needed like lumber, GREGORY of gravel and sand land in the illness, Ludwig F. Kahle passed
wiring, plumbing, fixtures, dry wall, WITUL earned him a number of jobs build- Towns of Lancaster and Newstead. away. He was memorized at Resur-
insulation, and concrete, there were ing homes and within a year he was
receiving contracts from the city for Ludwig further expanded his hold- rection Lutheran Church on Doat
a few things we hadn’t considered.
cement work on local bridges. In ings in 1957 by taking over the Street and interred at Forest Lawn
We also need to lay down fresh turf,
time Kahle would work on projects Pfohl Brothers sand and gravel firm Cemetery.
add a subpanel for the work shed, of Cheektowaga. The Pine Hill Concrete Compa-
invest in a humidity control system, Following the Great War, Ludwig from the Fletcher Street School in With the great success of the ny would stay strong under the next
and purchase a ton of gravel for a along with his brother Curt and Tonawanda to all the cement work company Ludwig and his wife Ot- generation of Kahles. Mark would
French drain. If we were building Carl, and sister Irmgard were of- for Division Tire & Supply Co. tilie built themselves a new home guide it after his father and Drew C.
the house a little more than a decade fered the chance to move to the building on Jefferson Ave. near the Cleveland Hill neighbor- Kahle served as vice president as the
ago, the only place we would have United States and live with their In 1946, Kahle was offered the hood. In his free time Kahle could business became known as Pine Hill
gone for concrete and gravel would maternal grandfather Frederick opportunity to buy a small concrete be found at the Buffalo Trap and Materials. In 2001 the French multi-
have been the Pine Hill Concrete Heckel in Buffalo. mixing firm at 2255 Bailey. Know- Field Club, the Park Country Club, national corporation Lafarge pur-
Company. In the Queen City Ludwig ing the returns that could be made or tending to his stable of horses. As chased all the assets of Pine Hill and
Ludwig F. Kahle was born in the worked as a carpenter for a short on the supply side of mason work his son came of age and began tak- the company was closed down, end-
tiny village of Krumhermersdorf, time but was soon focused on be- and wanting to get away from the ing a more active role in Pine Hill, ing the half century legacy of this
halfway between Leipzig and coming a cement mason. After a back breaking labor, Ludwig made Ludwig semi-retired from the com- German-American firm.
Prague, in the Kingdom of Saxony decade of training, Ludwig his move. After winding down the pany. On Sept. 22, 1976 after a brief
on April 8, 1903. While living in the launched Concrete Contractor: contracting work and getting the
German Empire, Kahle finished his “Quality Works at Lowest Prices” logistics of his new company in or-
formal education at the end of the out of his home at 2346 Genesee St. der Ludwig brought on his brothers,
8th grade and entered the trades. in late 1930. Ludwig’s experience Carl and Curt, and incorporated
Pine Hill Concrete Mix Corp. in
July of 1949.
Right out of the gate the Kahles
ran into trouble. Before they were
even incorporated the AFL Truck
Drivers Union voted to picket Pine
Hill, as well as the Stone Mix, Buf-
falo Gravel, George Frey, and Con-
crete Construction companies.
Almost as soon as that was settled
the families living on Haven Street
began complaining about all the
trucks going up and down the road.
Ludwig’s lawyers were able to sal-
vage the situation by proving that
the Haven Street entrance to the site
predated the 1920 zoning laws.
It didn’t take long for Pine Hill
Concrete to become a raging suc-
cess. By 1951 the firm poached the
top district sales manager from the
Huron Portland Cement Company,
had 70 employees, operated a fleet
of 50 concrete-mixing trucks, and a
second location in Depew.
To insure the company’s future
Kahle began buying up huge tracts

David Achenbach
Karl & Linda Bauer
Roger Coolbaugh
Ingrid Field
Thanks! Richard Gallagher

from the Peter Grollitsch
Marge Thielman Hastreiter
Heinrich Hoegerle
Edwin Jauch
Loretta Kanehl
John Krause

Your support William Maas
Paul Neupert
is greatly
John Pauly
appreciated! Mary Sutton

Trudy Weber