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Great Western• a limestone operation has changed management for the firsttime in 26 years with the retirement of James W. Dudgeon, veteran cw·engineer and manager of the Limestone Department.
Jim retired on S91>t. 30 with more than 34 years of service in various engineering and management assignments with Great Western. His successor was
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George A. Berlin~ limestone mine engine r, oae appointment was announced by
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President Frank A. Kemp.
The Limestone Department operates the underground quarry at Horse Cree~, Wyo., northwest of Cheyenne, to provide more than 100,000 tons of graded rock annually for GW sugar factories in Northern Colorado and Western Nebraska. It also oversees limestone production at the Warren Quarry in Montana, through a lease arrangement, to provide rock for the Billings and Lovell factories.
Jim Dudgeon joined Great Western with a background in mine engineering. He was raised in Denver and graduated from West High School iq 1909 and from Colorado School of Mines in 1913. Fro there he went to work on "the end of a muck stick" on the 1400-foot level of Anaconda Copper's Leonard Mine at Butte, Montana. Re advanced through the mine jobs and from 1919 to 19?.4 serv d aa
chief engineer at the Colorado mine of th Davis Daly Copper Company at Butte. In 1924, Jim was hired by George
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Reinks to work for Great Western on the job of surveying and supervising the construction of new beet dumps. He also designed th beet-handling factory stations at Eaton, Ovid and Minatare.In 1926, Jim was named travel b1g enginee'l' for the sugar factories at Ea ton, Greeley and Windsor. And late in 1927, he was appointed traveling engineer for
the factories at Billings and Lovell.
Jim was called back to the General Office at Denver in 1932 to become manager of the Ingleside Limestone Company, an old GW subsidiary, and to carry
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on the limestone job in place of William M. Rex> who met an untimely death at
the Hartville Quarry.
From that time until his retirement, he continued to manage the limestone
operations for Great ~stem and also took over the chief engineer's job for
the Great Western aailw.y in 1941. His succeaaor in the ailway job will also
be George Berlin.
In announcing the change in the Li stone Department, President Kemp said:
"Jim Dudgeon has been an important part of the Company's operation and I know
that his many fri nds will join me in be t wishe to him."
Another measure of Jim's service and popularity came on his last day on the job when he was presented with a number of going-away gifts from his Ge~eral
Office friends and from the supervisors and crew at the Hor Creek Quarry.
His successor, George Berlin, also came to Great Western from Colorado
School of Mines, where he was graduated in 19Sl. George joined GW in 1952 and
first worked as an electrician at the Johnstown Sugar Factory. Later that
year. he s appoint d mine engin er and transferred to the General Office.
Before he ttended School of Mines. Georg served as a fir t lieutenant
in the Field Artillery and saw service with the Fifth Army in the Italian cam•
paigns of World War II. Before the war, he was a student at Kansas State College.
He wa born on a Montana homestead and raised in Kansas.
George is married to the former Avis Swaney. daughter of the 1 te John M.
Swaney, who wae employed at the Johnstown SugaT Factory. They have four children••