Waltz & Reece Construction Company

The Waltz & Reece Construction Company was a construction company that operated in the first quarter of the 20th century, best known for its work on the Lackawanna Cut-off in New Jersey.

The original partners were P.L. Reece and J.B. Waltz.^[1] In 1899, they put a lien on the Yellowstone Park railway company to recover $5,293.47 owed to them for work on the railroad.^[2]

The partners incorporated the company in Billings, Montana, on May 28, 1902.^{[citation needed]}

Between 1908 and 1911, the company built the section of the Lackawanna Cut-off that ran from mileposts 48.2 to 50.2, working occasionally by torchlight to keep the massive project on schedule.^[3] Dubbed Section 2, the stretch included the Waltz & Reece Cut, the deepest cut on the 28.5-mile (45.9 km) project. The cut required the removal of 822,400 cubic yards of fill material by blasting with dynamite and other methods.^[4]

In 1912, the company moved its headquarters from Stanhope and Netcong, New Jersey, to Nicholson, Pennsylvania.^[5] Reece and Waltz, both engineers, worked on piers 5 and 6 of the Tunkhannock Viaduct, the largest concrete structure in the world when completed in 1915.^[6]

In 1917, the company purchased the year-old Lackawanna Cutlery Company of Nicholson. The officers at the time were Reece, president, of Billings; Waltz, vice president, of Nicholson; G.M. Sipley, secretary and treasurer, of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania; and R.H. Linton, general superintendent, of Nicholson.^[7]

Waltz died in 1919, Reece in 1930. Both are buried in the Nicholson Cemetery.^[8]