In April 1973, NCMA’s Executive Committee gets an up-close look at the overseas concrete paving market. Members meet in London for a tour of English manufacturing plants and job sites. Learn how that very first fact-finding trip kicks off efforts to bring pavers to the United States.

NCMA president J. L. Strandberg writes Harry Truman, chairman of the Senate's National Defense Program, urging the use of concrete masonry in war-time ordnance plants. Today, Strandberg is often remembered as a key pioneer in the history of the NCMA.

NCMA reports on an exhaustive mail survey tasked with the goal of determining the effectiveness of the monthly magazine Concrete Masonry Pictorial. Read more about this long-time promotional tool and its value to modern day researchers.

April 1971: NCMA announces a breakthrough in designing load bearing concrete masonry structures with the release of a comprehensive 402-page book of design tables. Learn how the NCMA partnered with the designer of the Sears Tower, a 110-story Chicago landmark, to promote the ground breaking reference book.

March 1948: 70 years ago this week the NCMA wrapped up its annual convention in New York. The event marked a milestone: election of the first NCMA president from south of the Mason-Dixon line.

In March 1967, NCMA’s CM/NEWS calls the new Holiday Inn being built in downtown Jefferson City, Missouri “A new feat in high-rise construction”. The 13-story circular hotel is the first Holiday Inn to be built from load-bearing concrete masonry.

In the war years (1941-1945), the NCMA was asked by the War Production Board to make an intensive and accurate survey of the material requirements of the concrete masonry industry. The request was labeled urgent and the full cooperation of every manufacturer expected. In 1942, the NCMA reports on the production cost of 10-thousand 8x8x16 concrete block. Assuming two block machines operated for nine hours, manned by a crew of 15, the final cost will likely surprise you.