In the 1930s, Las Vegas Rock in Jean, NV, started off by extracting meta-quartzite stone. Since then, they have expanded to produce the “Vegas Cut” collection, landscape rock, flooring, custom stonework, slab material, windswept, cut-to-size panels, engraved signage, nominal split-face, random split-face and planking. As the company grew, it decided to build a new fabrication facility and purchased it for a quarter-of-a-million dollars in 2006. The bank they were expecting to receive the loan from ran out of money and eventually disappeared. It wasn’t until August 2010 that Las Vegas Rock was able to get financing through the USDA loan guarantees program and commence construction of their building. The building finished construction in March of 2011.
“In that interim period, we had commitments from about six different distributors from around the country that we selected from about 30, because they were the most financially sound retail distributors for floor tile and slabs,” said Chris Schulte, president of Las Vegas Rock. “Then in March of 2011, when we opened the building, each one of them came to us and said, ‘We are sorry, but we don’t have customers anymore.’ So our whole deal that we were going to get this continuous income from selling two truckloads a month to these six different people that they were going to distribute the material, collapsed.”