The Importance of Gravel

To estimate the role of Nystrup Gravel for the city of Nystrup and its population one has to take into account that the region where Nystrup is situated was primarily a farming region in the 1950´s. Most men and women had their daily outcome from crops and animals. How important farming and agriculture was to the Danish economy can be seen in the illustration below. A large part of what is labelled as industry in the illustration also owes its existence to farming. A good part of the Danish industry was refining agricultural products like meat and wheat into sausages and beer (just to mention two important and basic food products).

The Danish population and their employment status in 1940. From Hvem-Hvad-Hvor 1950.

What little industry has established itself in Nystrup in the first half of the fifties is mostly related to repairing and maintaining agricultural machinery and extracting stone, gravel or chalk. So when you meet a man in Nystrup there is an overwhelming chance that he works in farming or with stone and gravel.

Loco no. 5 pushing skips filled with one of the most important products for the city of Nystrup - gravel. 

Statistics from the late 1940´s mentioning 2.515 companies working with stone or chalk extraction employing some 25.000 people and contributing 166 mio a year to the Danish economy. It is worth noting that the companies on average were quite small - 10 employees each. From Hvem-Hvad-Hvor, 1950.
 If interested in seeing more of what the 'Hvem-Hvad-Hvor' comtained go to this Flickr-set.