The patriarch of the Dolese family was in the mining industry in the 1880s. His four sons found- ed Dolese Bros. Co. and traveled westward with the nation’s expansion. Initially, the Doleses provided ballast for the railroads, and from the Richards Spur quarry started moving rock into Oklahoma City via the railroad.
Dolese Brothers Co. was founded in Chicago, Ill., in 1902, but their headquarters was later relocated to downtown Oklahoma City.
Today, Dolese has more than 15 facilities providing crushed stone and gravel materials to the construction industry. The company is a leading supplier of crushed stone throughout the Southwest and provides construction material that’s used across the country.
The company has several quarries in Oklahoma. Richards Spur is the largest. others are located at Roosevelt and Cooperton in Kiowa County, and at Davis, Ardmore, Hartshorne, and Coleman. Dolese also has three stone yards: at Enid, in Oklahoma City, and one in Yukon.
Markets for materials from the quarries tend to be localized, said Kermit Frank, the company’s director of communications and community relations.
Richards Spur, for example, serves primarily the Lawton and Wichita Falls, Texas, areas (in addition to its railed material).
Frank said Dolese has four operations on the Canadian and Cimarron rivers for mining sand, which is used in the production of cement.
The company also makes concrete. Dolese has 60 ready-mix concrete plants across the state, Frank said, and a fleet of more than 300 concrete mixer trucks that deliver ready-mixed concrete daily.
Dolese also has a concrete block manufacturing plant in Oklahoma City that produces a wide range of concrete blocks used in the construction of buildings, offices, schools, and homes.
The company has approximately 1,000 employees scattered at various locations throughout Oklahoma. Previously the company operated in three states, but now all of its facilities are in the Sooner State.
Cognizant of the impact of their business on the environment, several of its former mining sites have been restored and reclaimed as lakes, parks, or recreational facilities. A prime example is Dolese Youth Park in Oklahoma City, which was reclaimed from a prior mine site and today features a fishing pond, a walking trail and playground equipment.