The Canada Cement Company was incorporated in 1909 by Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook), who merged eleven cement companies in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. For most of the period documented by this photographic collection, it was the largest cement company in Canada headquartered in Montreal. Using the Portland system of cement production, the Company expanded quickly until the Depression. Recovering in the late 1940s, the Company enlarged and modernized its Montreal East Plant, Plant No. 1 located in Pointe-aux-Trembles. By 1954 this plant with its heavily-bedded argillaceous limestone quarry was producing 30 percent of Canadian cement. The Company maintained other plants in Hull, Quebec; Port Colborne and Belleville, Ontario; Fort Whyte, Manitoba; and Exshaw, Alberta, as well as other various operations. In the later years, the Company became Canada Cement Lafarge and is now part of an international cement enterprise.