Warren Brothers Company Booklet on the Columbia River Highway

This illustrated booklet was printed and presented sometime in the late 1910's or early 1920's after the completion of paving the Columbia River Highway between The Dalles and Seaside. This 218 mile stretch of roadway was paved with "Warrenite" which is a Bitulithic-asphalt pavement and it was named after Frederick J. Warren who invented it in 1910.

Booklet courtesy Jeffery A. Fox - 2022.

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The Following is from the Book of Boston by Edwin M. Bacon, A. M. and was printed in 1916;

Warren Brothers Company, with its executive offices in Boston and with a large manufacturing plant and laboratory situated on Potter Street, East Cambridge, was organized in the year 1900 by the seven sons of the late Herbert M. Warren of Newton. Mass. (Albert C., Herbert M., Henry J., George C., Frederick J., Walter B. and Ralph L. Warren), the father being one of six brothers celebrated in their time as associated as far back as 1847 in lines of business analogous to that, of Warren Brothers Company, and as inventors of the gravel roof.

One of the older generation was the first to pump oil from wells to railroad through a pipe line. the point to which he delivered the oil to the railroad being then known as "Warren Landing," now the city of Warren, PA. The chief business of Warren Brothers Company was the manufacture, laying and sale of the pavement known as "Bitulithic," constructed under patents issued to the late Frederick J. Warren, president of the Warren Brothers Company from its organization until his death in February, 1905.

Mr. Frederick J. Warren's early training had been in the refineries owned by his father and uncles, and these associations were the stepping-stones which led his inventive mind to the discovery of a solution of the inherent defects in the pavement with which he was familiar. He had traveled extensively and it was only natural that he should see in his invention, which combined some of the features of the tar macadam and of the sheet asphalt, a resulting pavement that would to a high degree retain the good qualities of each of these types and overcome many of the defects. Bitulithic is defined in Webster's New International Dictionary as "designating a kind of paving, the main body of which consists of broken stone cemented together with bitumen or asphalt.

Bitulithic is distinctly different from other forms of asphalt pavement, in that the wearing surface is composed of a combination of crushed stone, varying in size from about one inch to impalpable powder, the several sizes being so proportioned that each receding size is used in the quantity required to fit the voids or air spaces between, the preceding coarser particles of stone. The result of this gradation is that the "mineral aggregate" thus produced is within ten per cent of the 'density of solid rock.

The "mineral aggregate" is heated to a temperature of about 300 degrees F., mixed with pure asphalt (also in a heated condition) in such quantity as to coat each and every particle of stone and thoroughly fill the remaining voids. After the proportions have been determined, "the mineral aggregate" is passed through a rotary dryer, from which it is carried by an elevator and through a rotary screen which separates the material into' several different sizes.

The proper proportions by weight of each of these sizes is secured by the use of a "multi-beam scale" and the exact required amount is weighed out into a "twin pug" rotary mixer, where it is combined with the bitulithic cement accurately weighed in proper proportions. The mixer is then dumped, while hot, into carts or trucks and is then hauled to the streets, spread and thoroughly rolled with a heavy steam roller. Upon this is spread a flush coat of special bitulithic cement, thoroughly sealing and waterproofing the surface. There is then applied a thin layer of finely-crushed stone, which is rolled into the seal coat, making it gritty and thereby affording a good foothold for horses and a surface upon which automobiles will not skid. The advantages claimed for the Bitulithic pavement over the standard sheet asphalt pavement or any of its modifications, such as the so-called asphaltic concrete pavement, are; Greater stability and consequent durability, better foothold, greater resiliency, more thoroughly water-proof and therefore more sanitary.