Concrete Contractors in Randolph, KS

Randolph has one of the most unusual stories of any town we serve, and it matters to concrete contractors because the town as it stands today was rebuilt on a new site. Randolph was platted in 1856 under the name Waterville and incorporated in 1886. The original town sat about a mile east of where it is today. When Tuttle Creek Lake began filling in 1962, it submerged four towns. Randolph was the only one of them to rebuild elsewhere.

Old Randolph and new Randolph

The ruins of the original downtown still sit on an island in the marshes near the lake's north end, and locals call it Old Randolph. You can see it from Kansas Highway 16. The rebuilt town's streets are named after the towns the lake covered.

Tuttle Creek Dam was started in 1952 and closed in 1959, on the Big Blue River in the Flint Hills. The Great Flood of 1951 gave the project its push. The lake stretches up to 16 miles and sits about 1,076 feet above sea level. Randolph is at about 1,253 feet.

What this means for homes in Randolph: the town grew on a new townsite after the old one was flooded, so much of its original flatwork dates to the years around that move. Concrete that age has been through decades of Kansas winters, and a lot of it is due for replacement.

Signs your concrete has reached the end

• Scaling: the top layer flakes or pits, exposing stones
• Spalling: chunks break off at edges and joints
• Settling: sections have dropped, leaving lips that catch toes and mower wheels
• Map cracking: a web of cracks across the surface that keeps spreading
• Rust stains: steel inside the slab has corroded and is expanding

One or two small issues can be repaired. When several show up together, replacement usually costs less over time than repeated patching.

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Building new to last longer

Older slabs were not always built with air-entrained concrete, planned joints or a proper cure. New work gets all three: an air-entrained mix that resists freeze-thaw damage far better than plain concrete, control joints spaced by slab thickness, and curing instead of letting the slab dry out. A new driveway or walk in Randolph built this way should hold up much longer than what it replaces.

Randolph is tiny, with 159 residents and 78 housing units in 2020, and it sits within the Manhattan metropolitan area. Many properties have room for a shed, a shop or a pad for a boat used on the lake. We pour those slabs with thickened edges, anchor bolts and enough thickness for the load.

Repair or replace: making the call

Not every old slab has to go. If a driveway has a few cracks but the surface is sound and the pieces are level, we can clean and seal the cracks and replace only the worst panel. If a walk has one sunken section, we cut it out at the nearest joints and repour just that piece. Full replacement makes sense when the surface is scaling across most of the slab, when sections have shifted in several directions or when the base underneath has clearly failed. We lay out the options side by side in the estimate, with what each one fixes and what it leaves for later, so you can decide based on your budget and how long you plan to stay.

Streets with old names

The town is named for pioneer settler Gardner Randolph. Tuttle Creek Lake affected ten towns in all and fully covered four: Cleburne, Randolph, Garrison Cross and Stockdale. New Randolph carries their names on its street signs. We pour driveways, patios, stamped work, walks and steps, garage and shed slabs, and repairs here, and we check with the city or county about permit needs before work begins. Call (785) 509-7585 to set up a visit.