A former Flat River icon fell off the landscape and into the history books Tuesday. The Vineyard Ready Mix Plant put up in 1948 came crashing down.

Nathan Schrum, owner of Schrum Ready Mix, said his company was hired by the property owner to destroy the rusty, old plant behind the old County Mart in Park Hills. It had become too dangerous to leave standing.

For about two weeks, workers had been slowly bringing the steel structure to its knees. Tuesday, they carefully placed chains around the legs of the bin that had stood 60 feet in the air to bring it crashing to the ground. It fell alongside the stairs that had been poured from the concrete and the wall that had been put up beside it. It fell just blocks from Vineyard Estates, where every inch of concrete came from the plant. When it fell, it broke a little bit of Schrum's heart.

“This is history,” he said. “I wanted to refurbish it, but it was more than I could do. The state should have done something to preserve it. We'll just haul it off for scrap.”

He said the plant was one of the first ready mix plants around. Before that, he said people mixed up the product by hand in barrels. He said most of downtown Flat River was built with Vineyard concrete.

“This was a very big business at the time,” said Schrum. The tall bin held the dry bulk cement. Behind it, other bins held sand, rock and water. Trucks would back in and by hand, workers would release the ingredients into the truck to mix the concrete. In 30 minutes, Schrum said the old plant made six yards of concrete. He said one yard of concrete will pour a nine-by-nine foot slab, four inches thick. Today's plants mix twice 12 yards in six minute. Computers make the difference.

Schrum said the plant had employed eight to 10 workers and closed in the 1960s. It was run by Breckenridge Concrete until 1985. It closed then never to reopen. The building that housed the office for the company still stands alongside the old County Mart.