Firm’s History Is Set in Concrete

Three generations of Muths built their company block by block. In doing so, they also helped build Orange County -- one 35-pound concrete block at a time.

Orco Block is headquartered off Beach Boulevard in Stanton. Fittingly, there is a 12-foot-tall concrete block near the curb.

Since 1946, the company has pumped out millions of 8-by-8-by-16-inch blocks -- made of sand, cement, water and rock -- that helped supply the county’s postwar building boom. Homes needed walls; subdivisions needed enclosures.

“More than half the concrete blocks in the county were manufactured at an Orco plant,” said Rick Muth, 56, president of the company.

Muth’s brother Lynn is a vice president and manages the family’s business holdings. Their father, Peter, founded the company with his grandfather, uncle and a business partner. They named their company after Orange County.

The Muths manufactured block in the 1960s for a miles-long wall that developer Ross W. Cortese wanted at his Leisure World retirement development in what is now Laguna Woods. Orco made the block for the wall that surrounded the initial development that later became Mission Viejo, and its block can be found at the Irvine Spectrum, Ladera Ranch and numerous schools and universities.

Doughnuts gave Peter Muth the inspiration to get into the business.

“At the time, my dad was baking doughnuts in Santa Ana and he wanted to get into something more permanent,” Rick Muth said.

As his dad walked down Main Street in Santa Ana one day, he noticed workmen with a pile of sand and gravel. Intrigued, he asked what they were doing and was told they were making concrete to make the blocks.

The workmen said a partner had quit and that they needed someone to join them. Peter Muth jumped in with $8,000 he borrowed from his father and uncle, and the group opened Orco Block in Santa Ana.

“After all, doughnuts and block had two things in common: You bake ‘em and they both have holes in the center,” Rick Muth said.

In 1953, the company moved to a bigger, 14-acre plant in Stanton. The family didn’t know it at the time, but Orange County’s population was about to explode -- and it was going to make them rich.

After the war, thousands of GIs who had liked the area decided to return and make it their home. In the 1950s, the completion of the Santa Ana Freeway, the decline of profitability of citrus groves and the growing military industry turned Orange County into Los Angeles’ booming suburbs.

Homes were needed. And homes needed block walls.

Competition among rivals was stiff, Muth recalled. But the family had a strategy to invest in expensive block-making equipment that helped them keep pace with demand by spitting out 1,500 blocks an hour.

“Business was getting cutthroat,” Muth said. In 1946, there were about 150 block manufacturers in Southern California. Today, he said, 11 remain.

Peter Muth’s big break came when he struck a deal to produce block for Leisure World.

“For my dad, it was a great deal of satisfaction that Leisure World chose him to make the blocks for its wall, and it meant a lot to the company. It helped the company stay alive,” Rick Muth said.

At the time, competitors wanted to buy the company.

“We had a competitor who came to us and said, ‘We’re going to build a beautiful new plant.’ Then he paused, looked at us and continued: ‘You can sell your business to us now, but we’re not promising you any blue sky.’ ”

Muth’s dad said no.

In 1969, Orco Block’s answer was to expand. Peter Muth bought 15 acres in Glen Avon, Riverside County. By 1989, the company had added two more plants in the county, bought out competitors in Banning and Oceanside and bought land for yet another factory, near Perris.

Today, the company has grown from the four partners and two employees to a workforce of 240.

Peter Muth, who became a prominent philanthropist, died in 2003 at 88. He left behind a company that earns an estimated $50 million a year.

Each year, Orco makes enough blocks to build a 6-foot wall stretching from the Mexican border to the middle of Oregon.

For Orco Block’s workers, being a part of the company is like having a role in the county’s history.

“I drive my wife crazy,” said George Spickelmier, a yard manager who has worked there 34 years.

“Everywhere we go in the car, I’ll stop and say, ‘We did that wall. That’s our block.’ I point it out on schools, on buildings, structures ... everywhere.”