Lincoln County Farm Center Fertilizer Blend Plant

1978 Monolithic Dome fertilizer storage.

This is the world’s first Monolithic Dome fertilizer storage. Constructed in 1978, the 75-foot diameter by 38-foot tall dome sits alongside the famous Route 66 highway in Chandler, Oklahoma.

The Lincoln County Farm Center provides retail fertilizer blending services from their Monolithic Dome facility in Chandler, Oklahoma. The 75-foot (23 m) diameter by 38-foot (11.5 m) tall Monolithic Dome is divided into six storage bins where various bulk fertilizer products are stored. Blends of bulk and bagged fertilizer products—each mix custom designed and created based on the season, crop, and soil conditions—are sold to Lincoln County area farmers.

Constructed in 1978, the storage dome was the first Monolithic Dome fertilizer storage ever built. William Matthews read a story about the Monolithic Dome in a fertilizer magazine and contracted Souths, Inc.—the predecessor of Monolithic—to construct a storage dome in Chandler, Oklahoma. The finished dome sat alongside historic US Route 66 and attracted a lot of attention, leading to the construction of fertilizer storage domes all along the Mississippi River.

The six storage bins were also the first constructed using single-sided plywood forms and spray-in-place concrete to create the walls. It’s a process expanded to build Orion style Monolithic Domes and is also the preferred method of bin wall construction, today.

As one of the earliest Monolithic Domes, the air-form membrane was removed and a coating covered the dome. After 33 years, the dome was re-coated using metal shingles—in a process called metal cladding—to renew the dome in 2011.

Metal cladding.

The dome was refurbished and clad in metal shingles in 2011.