If you happen to be in Portland and ask around for the place where Portland cement was first made, you would be disappointed to learn you are on the wrong continent. Joseph Aspdin, the inventor of the substances, named it after the rocks of Isle of Portland, off the coast of his native Britain. Regardless of its origins, however, Aspdins’ was a hugely important invention, replacing the heavier and weaker cement mixes of the past. Aspdin literally performed the experiment in his kitchen, heating up a mixture of finely ground limestone mixed with burnt clay and other substances, to produce his own hydraulic cement.

On this day, October 21, in 1824 Joseph Aspdin, a British stone mason, obtained a patent for his homemade cement.

Portland cement was critical to the completion of the Thames River tunnel, built between 1825 and 1843, as well as the London sewer system, construction of which began several years after the opening of the tunnel. It is still in wide use today, made by much the same formula as that used by Aspdin.