When my father purchased the Broughton farm in the late 1920’s he then owned the land on each of Bokes Creek at York Center, Ohio.

So…..what did he do to extend his quarry further in that direction? HE MOVED THE CREEK! Truly! He did! He moved Bokes Creek over onto the Broughton farm pasture land that bordered his quarry.

How did he do that? Well…..you can’t just pick up a creek and set it down where you want it to be. So…..he had his steam shovel operator strip the dirt down to the solid rock, building a new creek bed. Then he cleared the dirt at each end for Bokes Creek water to flow through this newly dug bed.

He closed off the original creek bed, put a sump-pump at the end of the closed off bed and pumped the water out into the new bed through a pipe over the bank.

And it worked! Just like that! He now had all this extra land to drill and set off dynamite shots, giving him broken up rock to crush and sell for roads.

No one was really surprised because of the many things he had already done. It just seemed natural from a man of many talents.

That was my dad.