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LeTourneau Company Domes

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1953. 2500 block S. Estes Pkwy.

These five aluminum domes were built by the R. G. LeTourneau Company as an experiment in the economical enclosure of interior space. The first of the five shallow domes was erected in 1953 and served Longview for a number of years as a 12,000-seat meeting hall. The company, a manufacturer of heavy earthmoving and timber industry equipment and mobile offshore drilling platforms, designed and fabricated each dome of 1,200 corrugated aluminum plates that were bolted into concentric rings to form a structure 94 feet high and 300 feet in diameter. Erection was completed in thirty days. The domes represent one of the earliest and most efficient uses of aluminum as an unsupported structural skin. Today, the LeTourneau Company utilizes these structures for industrial fabrication.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

First Baptist Church
Longview Fire Department (Longview Municipal Building and Central Fire Station)
Gregg County Courthouse
F. L. Whaley House
Nugget Hill Residential Neighborhood

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "LeTourneau Company Domes", [Longview, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-02-LT6.

Print Source

Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019, 92-92.

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