In 1824, Joseph Aspdin, a British stone mason, obtained a patent for a cement he produced in his kitchen. The inventor heated a mixture of finely ground limestone and clay in his kitchen and ground the mixture into a powder creating a hydraulic cement – one that hardens with the addition of water. Aspdin named the product portland cement because it resembled a stone quarried on the Isle of Portland off the British Coast. With this invention, Aspdin laid the foundation for today's portland cement industry. The
first large use of this modern-day portland cement, and its first engineering use, was in a tunnel under the Thames River in 1828. The first recorded shipment of portland cement to the US was in 1868. The first portland cement manufactured in the US was produced at a plant in Coplay, Pennsylvania in 1871
