Company History

Early Years:

• 1912 - Forcum-James Construction Company was founded by the Forcum Family.
• 1918 - C.B. Ford came from the coal mines in Arkansas and merged his paving company into Forcum-James Construction company and our company road building business was born.
• 1918 - Asphalt paving began this year in Dyer county and other surrounding counties.
• 1940's - The Corps of Engineers started placing asphalt revetments up and down the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River.
• 1940's - C.B. Ford invested in a towboat, barges and asphalt plant to place asphalt on river banks for stabilization.
• 1955 - C.B. Ford split from Forcum-James and created Ford Construction Company.
• 1957 - The owners of Ford Construction Company bought out Choctaw Transportation Company, which was a towing company.  This gave us more capability to meet the demands of the Corps of Engineers.

Stone Placement:

• River Paving operations continued until the late 1960's at which time the Corps of Engineers stopped asphalt placement and began using concrete mats for revetments due to environmental concerns
• Mats are placed from the water's edge down to a specific water elevation.  Stone is placed above the mats on the exposed bank
• Different Corps districts have contracts to place stone above the mats and Choctaw Transportation Company has completed these contracts from Saint Louis to New Orleans
• Choctaw Transportation Company also builds stone dikes to divert river water into a constant channel and performs various bank stabilizations and environmental projects all over the southeast
• Choctaw Transportation Company completes between five and ten multi-million dollar stone contracts with the Corps of Engineers every year as seen in the related project experience section
• Choctaw Transportation Company also completes various other public and private stone jobs, including work for the TVA.  Much of this work is on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers

Accomplishments:

• In the past fifty years, Choctaw Transportation and Ford Construction completed in excess of one billion dollars in federal, state, local, public and private marine construction.
• Choctaw Transportation and Ford Construction have the ability and resources to complete ninety percent of all work in-house.
• Choctaw Transportation and Ford Construction both are transitioning to a fourth generation company.  Only two percent of private companies in America can claim this accomplishment.
• Choctaw Transportation and Ford Construction have both received numerous outstanding achievement and progress awards from various Corps of Engineers districts and other public and private institutions.