Kenneth Hammet Talbot

The oldest child of Arthur and Virginia Talbot was Kenneth Hammet Talbot, born at Champaign, Ill., in 1887. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois in 1909, and later with a Civil Engineer's degree in 1917, after he was married. He followed a career in concrete production, research and engineering, and practiced all over the United States. Kenneth and his wife Gertrude Louise Phillips Talbot had three children: William Phillips Talbot, Virginia Talbot, and Arthur Newell Talbot II.

Kenneth's wife, Gertrude Louise Phillips (1886-1976) was the youngest daughter in the family of a prominent dentist in Elgin, Ill. A devout church member throughout her life, she was the first female of her family to become a university graduate (Denison, 1908). Her educational base -- eight years of Latin, six years of Greek; and graduate work in English at the University of Chicago -- gave her a lifelong interest in the classics. "Even as she approached the age of 90," her son Phillips Talbot recalls, "she continued honing her intellectual pursuits in discussion and study groups, to which she often presented papers researched on diverse subjects. But her commitment was to her family, which she nurtured through good times and hard. Her values were the rock on which the family maintained itself."

After graduation from the University of Illinois in 1909, Kenneth Talbot became the concrete foreman for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, in charge of bridge, culvert, and building construction. He then became a division engineer for Universal Portland Cement in Pittsburgh (1911-18). During World War I, he served in the construction division of the U.S. Army.

After the war, he went on to different careers. He spent five years as manager of field service for the Milwaukee-based Koehring Co., which made shovels, pavers, concrete mixers and heavy equipment. He was with Centrifix Corp., Cleveland, for two years, and Cowham Engineering Co., Chicago for a year; he returned to Koehring in 1927 as sales manager, then director of research until 1932, when the Depression caused the company to close its research division.

Then, working with Theodore C. Thee in Milwaukee, Kenneth Talbot designed the "tar baby", a soil stabilizer and paver, for which the two men were given patent rights. The machine was built and then used under Kenneth's supervision on road construction in Wisconsin and Nebraska. (Harnischfeger Corp., Milwaukee, later started development of a similar machine, which led to the purchase of the Talbot-Thee patent. In the early 1960s Harnischfeger sold the rights to Barber-Greene Corp.)

In 1935, Kenneth Talbot was hired by Harza Engineering Co., Chicago, and, according to his younger son, Arthur Talbot II, "he was in charge of the concrete on the Loup River Power Project in Nebraska. Next he was appointed concrete engineer for the Bureau of Reclamation's construction of Parker Dam on the Colorado River, between California and Arizona. From there he went to South Carolina where he was in charge of all of the concrete on Santee-Cooper project, which was a mammoth inland waterway docks and power plant project for all of southern South Carolina.

"In 1941, Kenneth pined the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks as a civilian engineer. He supervised the construction of the battleship dry-docks at the New York and Norfolk Navy Yards. All of the concrete was placed with divers. It was not until each dry-dock was completed and the water pumped out that a complete assessment of the construction could be established. Kenneth, working with Capt. P.J. Halloran of the Yards and Docks, designed the specifications and procedures for underwater concrete for the Navy. In 1944 Kenneth and Captain Halloran were awarded the John Wason Medal of the American Concrete Institute."

After that, Kenneth Talbot was put in charge of the concrete work at the Hanford (Washington) atomic bomb plant. "We didn't know then what that was -- it was called the Hanford Engineering Works in those days," Arthur Talbot II recalls. "That project was probably one of the biggest concrete jobs that had been done.

"Kenneth then went into semi-retirement and developed the use of perlite as a lightweight aggregate for concrete building blocks. Perlite, like vermiculite, not only served as an aggregate, but also had excellent insulating properties. He continued consulting and research in concrete until his death in 1952."