When access to its river aggregate supply was cut off, Churchman Sand & Gravel turned to recycling material brought in by construction and landscaping companies.

Fred Churchman opened Churchman Sand & Gravel in Tucson in 1946. Dick Smith became a partner in 1952 and, eventually, bought the business from Churchman. “It has been a sole proprietorship since 1972,” says Smith, “but we kept the name Churchman Sand & Gravel because that’s how customers know the company. We’re the oldest individually owned sand and gravel company in Tucson.”

Churchman Sand & Gravel runs a sand, gravel, and rock recycling operation in the foothills of northern Tucson.

The company initially began as a sand and gravel operation on the Rillito River in northern Tucson near the foothills. Raw material — sand, gravel, and rock — were taken from the river and processed. The supply of raw material was plentiful and business was booming until…

Changing direction

In 1983, there was a 100-year flood. “It washed out two of our neighbors’ houses,” Smith says, “and they sued me, Pima County, and one other builder across the river for $12 million. They said we diverted the water, causing it to erode their bank.”

The company settled the lawsuit in court two years later. The courts looked back at 30 to 40 years of river records. “Overlays showed how the river meanders and changes from year to year, proving our excavating in the river wasn’t necessarily the reason it cut into their bank,” Smith says. “We won the case.”

Unfortunately, winning the case didn’t mean it was back to business as usual for the company. Pima County decided to buy all property adjacent to the river, which meant Churchman Sand & Gravel could no longer excavate raw material. This was a big setback for the company, but it wasn’t the end. The company simply changed direction.

Customers bring material in from construction sites and dump it free of charge.

“At that point, we started importing material from exporting jobs,” Smith says. “Customers bring material in and dump it, and, in some cases, we bring it here ourselves. We don’t pay for the imported material, or charge for dumping, but we do charge for it once we process it. We clean it, screen it, size it, and either haul it back out for one of our jobs or sell it to construction companies, sometimes the same ones who brought in a load.”

Smith says the company builds house pads and does underground work, so he uses a lot of the processed material, but he gets foot traffic from small customers as well. “We are strictly a convenience for small loads such as pickups,” Smith says. “We’re the only operation in the foothills for miles in both directions. We make very little money from the little guys, but they do sometimes lead to larger sales. Our main source of income is from building house pads and selling landscaping material.”

Churchman Sand & Gravel cleans, screens, and sizes the material that is brought in, then either hauls it back out for one of its jobs or sells it to other construction companies and individuals.

The large rock at the operation comes from up in the foothills where access roads are being built for million-dollar homes. “A road builder brings it in,” Smith says. “We store it in an arroyo on the property. We can crush it and make something saleable out of it, but things have been so slow recently, we don’t worry about that now. With the lack of water in this area, almost all the rock gets used for decorative purposes in landscaping.”

The company also makes pipeline material for the city and the county for use in burying natural gas and water lines. Some material is used by phone companies, as well, for burying fiber optic lines. Churchman Sand & Gravel has even hired out to do the work themselves in places as far away as Nevada.

Recycled material is loaded into a customer’s dump truck and trailer rig.