Morthole Masonry celebrates milestone
Photos/Story by Lynn Colburn
Born and raised in Jacksonville, Steve Morthole says there is no place he’d rather be. He and Morthole Masonry, Concrete and Snow Removal are part of the brick-and-mortars of Jacksonville’s business community, celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary of paving the way into the future in July. Although Morthole himself has remained in Jacksonville all his life, it doesn’t mean his life has not had its twists and turns.
A graduate of Jacksonville High School, Morthole went to vocational architectural school at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. “I was thinking I would go on to be an architect,” says Morthole. “I was pretty good at drawing. When I graduated, I was supposed to do an apprenticeship for an architect and maybe get a little field work, it would be four to five years before I would be able to take my architectural standards exam. An architectural apprentice rate was $2.85 per hour.”
Morthole’s father and two uncles were bricklayers, so he had been a bricklayer since he was 14 years old, working all through high school for Crabtree and Neff (now Neff-Colvin, Inc.) every summer. He was given his bricklayers card in 1968, since in college he would work during the winter, holidays and in the summers also.
The first turn in life happened in 1989. “After college, I was drafted,” says Morthole, “and then was denied medically. I had also gotten married. I was in North Main Café having lunch with my father-in-law, Pat McHatten, when Earl Boucher came in … he was a huge masonry contractor. They sat on either side of me with their big cigars and blowing smoke at me. Boucher bit on his cigar and said, ‘You’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning with Paul Pieper at nine o’clock and you better be there.’ Then he pointed to my head and said, ‘You’ve got too much up here to be doing what you’re doing. You go to work for a general contractor and learn the ropes and we’ll let you know when it’s time to part ways.’”
Morthole went to work for Paul Pieper Construction. In 1974, Pieper had a lot of earnest money invested in property to build housing projects that would eventually be reimbursed through housing project grant money. “We did all the drawings and the presentations on easels and we had a salesperson, Frank Whitman, who would wine and dine the housing authorities with my drawings and the figures I had developed,” says Morthole.
He continues, “After the contract was signed, President Reagan was forced, and with the stroke of a pen, pulled all of the HUD money in the country and it was all gone. Ultimately Pieper, of course, was still on the hook for the entire out-of-pocket earnest money spent.”
Life suddenly took a topsy turvy twist and Morthole remembers, “Everyone in the business was shocked. I was about 23 years old at the time, married with two daughters, and trying gather all of this in my young mind, thinking about all the work we had put in on this.”
Says Morthole, “At the time we were also working on local development of urban renewal … the first time the plaza had been renovated since the 1800s.” Pieper called Morthole into his office and told him he didn’t need office help any more.
Morthole continues, “He told me, ‘I’ve got to try to salvage my life and the work we have.’ There was also a guy ahead of me, Mike Tribble, so he stayed, and Mr. Pieper told me ‘Linda, Mike and I can take care of the contracts, and you have already made the drawings, collected the bids and done all you can for the urban renewal project that we will continue with.’”
Then came another twist. Pieper told Morthole he had two options: (1) he would make sure he was a bricklayer for the duration of the work he had (there were four new quadrant buildings in the square, the Catholic church, Gillespie’s, True Value, the Laborers’ Union, Wade & Dowland and the north wall of Gustine’s) or (2) he could become a contractor.
“I chose to be a contractor,” says Morthole. “Then he told me, ‘Go home with the plans and tell me what you can build each quadrant building for. He knew full well I had drawn the plans and gotten the bids. So, I told him I could do the project and he told me, ‘Well, it looks like you have a job.’”
It was $100,000 worth of work and Pieper told Morthole to make something of himself. At the time, however, all Morthole could think about was that he didn’t have a truck, a wheelbarrow or any means of getting what he needed to do the job.
Fortunately, Pieper told Morthole he would be all right, and set up a meeting right away with Max Roegge at First National Bank. The two went to the bank together. On the way, Pieper told Morthole “Drive the truck you’re driving,” which was Pieper’s. At the bank, he suggested to Roegge that the bank loan Morthole $10,000 (10%) since he had $100,000 worth of contracts. At the same time, he made it known that the Pieper name would not be on the loan, papers or anything.
“That was in July [1974],” says Morthole. “By the end of the year, I had the $10,000 paid back, had made money, all the bills were paid and all of my equipment was paid for! And that was just the four quadrant buildings in the square.”
Continues Morthole, “I immediately went on to pour concrete floors and build the walls for Gillespie’s, moved to True Value, then Laborer’s Hall and then Wade & Dowland.” After all of those were completed, Morthole continued another project with Pieper and his partners at the shopping center (Martin Newman, Bud Walker and Vince Penza), building onto the A&P Grocery Store and the north part of the shopping center out to the corner where the Sears building is now and the offset that goes back to Sherwin Williams and Radio Shack.
“Then John Boyle wanted a pizza place, so we helped with Pizzan’s,” says Morthole.
Indeed, Morthole, through a quality product and a lot of arduous work, has kept busy ever since! He says, “People like Bob Neff and John Colvin also always supported me wholeheartedly. We were CB radio enthusiasts together, Neff was ‘The Toolbox,’ I was ‘The Brick,’ and I can’t remember what John was. In 1977, the two of them had a plan, took me to the Jacksonville Country Club and said, ‘We are all going to build the Pro Shop.’ But the first order of business was John saying, ‘Bob is going to sponsor you as a member and I’m going to co-sponsor you.’ So, I joined the Country Club and we built the Pro Shop.”
Morthole explains, “One of the keys to our business is that we are union. … We pay benefits, unemployment and more as part of wages. I have good core people. We’ve got to hustle to make all that work, but I’ve had a lot of really good people go through here over the years!”
Morthole currently has three full-time employees and employs others as needed. He says his son-in-law, Chris Richardson, really runs the whole show right now. “Chris learned to lay brick and finish concrete on the job with other journeymen employees. I have always had the best concrete finishers in Jacksonville. As long as I can come in and support Chris, I will be here. But Chris is the key to it all and the future. When bidding a job, we both know how to count block and brick, but it’s Chris who considers the location of the work and things that could change costs like prep work, location on the property, clean up and more.”
Another turn in life was when Morthole was able to buy his first truck and started his snow plowing business alongside the masonry and concrete business. “In 1975, Don Shillinger, who owned Don’s Gulf on Morton and Church, said ‘Let’s put my Bronco plow on your truck, you can take over my snowplow removal business, keep my drive clean and I will send all my work to you.” Morthole says that Shillinger knew he didn’t have the patience to deal with the snow removal business — and that is how it started.
“Richard Evans had a Jeep and wanted to help, and then I needed a dump truck about two to three years later, so I bought a plow for it. We used that truck for a lot of years! I just kept building the number of snowplow trucks. I have done it with the help of Richard (who retired a few years ago), Jay Wiegand, Phil McCarty, my family and many others along the way with Amanda running snowplow base command from the office. If you have a driveway in Jacksonville, we’ve probably plowed it at one time. But now we just do commercial snow plowing.”
Morthole Masonry and Concrete has equipment for all the various aspects of their business, including scaffolding, diverse types of trucks, three skid steer loaders and more. One vehicle of which Morthole is particularly proud is the ice melt truck.
“We also do a lot of equipment repairs ourselves,” Morthole explains. “Time is valuable so backups for important equipment help make sure there is no down time. This business is dependent on everything working.”
Besides saying Richardson is a good business partner and the future of the business, Morthole shares, “If I’d written down what I wanted for my daughter, he is even more! He is a good man!”
Morthole Masonry and Concrete continues to be engaged in the masonry and concrete business today. The company does it all — driveways, sidewalks, basement floors, garage floors and more. It has done masonry work of brick, block and stone all over Jacksonville, Virginia, Ashland, Franklin, Waverly, Springfield, Quincy, Jerseyville and Brighton.
If you have walked around Illinois College where they closed Mound Avenue and made it into the commons area, you have seen a big Morthole project. They did the brickwork all around and laid the area from where the Lincoln statue is located all the way up to the church. Morthole is immensely proud of the project and the grooved sidewalks there.
In addition, they have done work at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital, for the building currently Fitness World, the YMCA’s southwest section, the City of Jacksonville and many other state, municipal, commercial and private jobs.
Visible local work includes Lincoln Elementary School, a project close to Morthole’s heart as an former student. The company in charge of the project asked him what they could do with the entry. Morthole knew the importance of preserving the integrity of the building’s curved wall, but made the extra touch of taking stones from the outside and putting them on the inside to preserve their history forever.
They have been able to integrate the past and the present in other big school projects such as North Greene, Carrollton, Jacksonville, Lincoln, Winchester and Jerseyville. They also finished a secure entry at Triopia School recently.
On a personal level, Morthole cares about his community. He served as Assistant Fire Chief in South Jacksonville for 15 years (1970-1985), helping start the EMT/Rescue Squad program and was paramount in obtaining the funding for vehicle for that squad with the help of others and a little pressure on the South Jacksonville Board to assist in financing the bed of the truck. Morthole has also been on the Dive Team about 10-15 years. He says, “They didn’t accept me for diving, but for being a calm and experienced member to talk to people during bad situations. People just want to get closer and know what is going on and get an answer. I put on the Dive Team hat and can explain what is happening and ask for patience while we are searching and it keeps people calm.”
Morthole also enjoys bass fishing with friends both locally and in Bull Shoals, Arkansas; is a NASCAR enthusiast; and if there is college football or basketball on TV or locally, he is there. He and Bobby Hawks started Sprint Car Racing many years ago, traveling to many tracks where Hawks raced. “I have done a little of everything,” Morthole says. “I still have my first car, which works … a 1955 Chevrolet 2-door, which I used to take to car shows with my daughters.” He even bought them a smoke gray 1981 Camaro Z28 of their own at a show years ago.
Morthole gives credit to the Lord when he says, “We built it together [the business and the projects].” He says it took him years before he realized who was in charge, but he is clear on that now.
Morthole says, too, about their work that he likes the longevity of it. “My philosophy is that if my name is on it, it is going to be perfect when we leave,” he says. “We are not going to short-change the customer to profit off of it.”
Morthole has not only built a successful business in the past 50 years, but he has built friendships, a family, a faith, a legacy in this community and a life of which he can be forever proud! Congratulations!
