"The LeTourneau domes are a familiar landmark when driving into the heart of Longview from the south. The name of the industrial company has changed several times — it’s now Komatsu. Still, for long-time residents, the domes retain the name of the company founder, who left his mark on this city in many ways. R.G. LeTourneau founded the company that bore his name, invented massive earth-moving equipment and off-shore oil drilling platforms, held hundreds of patents and developed a private Christian technical institute after World War II that evolved into LeTourneau University.
Eventually that company transitioned from family ownership. Its archives ended up at the university — dozens of boxes of records. This summer, along with my co-workers at the Estes Library, I am going through those boxes, categorizing contents, putting the material into archival file folders. It is fascinating work, not a bad way to spend several hours daily in air-conditioned comfort. That’s where I learned the story about those domes from reprinted magazine articles, published in 1954."
Click here to read the rest of this May 2019 article by Gary Borders, a local reporter on-staff with the LeTourneau University Margaret Estes Library.
