COMPANY HISTORY

THE LEGACY

Johnson Concrete Products (JCP) was founded by Allen Starling Johnson, Jr. and his father in 1947 as a single pipe plant in Salisbury, NC. Over the decades, the company has expanded to four locations across North Carolina that produce concrete pipe, structural masonry, architectural veneers, and segmental retaining walls with a regional shipping footprint. Additionally, we operate three masonry and hardscape showrooms that distribute brick, stone, pavers, and other building materials. As a fourth generation local, family owned industry leader, JCP continues its history of exceeding expectations for quality, consistency, and customer service.

A native of Lexington, NC, Allen Starling Johnson, Jr. was an All-American starting guard on Wallace Wade’s legendary “Iron Duke” 1938 football team. In 1939 he returned as a senior captain and graduated in the spring with a degree in Economics. While at Duke, he became smitten with Frances “Billy” Johnson, the only female in his Economics classes. The two were married in 1941 and settled in Salisbury.

After college, Allen began driving lumber trucks to Washington, DC for his father’s lumber business as part of the war effort. In the post-war construction boom, Allen noticed that people around Salisbury were using cinders to make their own blocks. He began thinking that he could mass-produce a lighter and cleaner block in a more efficient manner. After convincing his father, “Pop”, to become a business partner and purchasing land on Klumac Rd., he hired a salesman, an office manager, and a production crew and began making pipe and block in Salisbury.

Johnson Concrete’s initial blocks contained slag, a byproduct of smelting ore, from Alabama. Supply became unreliable, so Allen began researching how he could produce his own aggregates to use in block. He ultimately opened an expanded clay plant in Salisbury and named it Tufflite. A short time later, Allen was visiting Young Stone in Gold Hill and realized that the slate being mined there could be expanded, producing a lighter and higher strength aggregate for his blocks. Allen bought the adjacent property and in 1950 Carolina Stalite was born.

In 1968, Allen hired Charles Newsome as General Manager of Stalite. When Charles started, Stalite was made using sintering machines and its furthest customer was 125 miles away in Columbia, SC. Today, Stalite operates 8 rotary kilns with patented technology, ships material all over the world, and is the industry leader in structural lightweight aggregate.

Allen died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1982. Charles advised Mrs. Johnson to sell Stalite and Johnson Concrete. The market was strong, she had been out of the workforce for nearly forty years and had a special needs son. Mrs. Johnson told Charles that selling wasn’t an option because she didn’t want to risk our employees losing their jobs and immediately assumed the role of President. She and Charles made a great team and worked hand-in-hand until Mrs. Johnson retired in her early eighties. Mrs. Johnson passed in 2016; today Johnson Concrete is 100% women owned by her three daughters and two granddaughters.