Material Service

Material Service Corporation was founded in 1919 by three brothers - Henry, Sol, and Irving Crown. At that time, there were 80 sand and gravel companies operating in the highly competitive, major market of Chicago, and Material Service ranked last. The Company owned no sources of raw material and only had a single distribution point - a 50' x 100' lot on the north side of Chicago. Over the years, the Crowns acquired or developed production facilities, especially those near water to take advantage of low cost barge transportation. We are now a leading producer of aggregate materials in the Chicago area. Material Service believes strongly in the importance of its customer relationships, perhaps best captured in Colonel Henry Crown's recollections of the Company's early years in business: "We started on the premise that our building material was really no different than any competitor's, so we had to provide something extra. That something extra was better service, and we worked day and night to provide it."