About McCain Construction

Kenneth McCain founded McCain Construction in the late 196O’s. He began his construction business as a homebuilder. His prior experience was in real estate and development, when he worked with Jimmy Taylor & Co. in the early 6O’s. With the final closing of Fort Chaffee as an active military base, the real estate market in Fort Smith became stagnant. Looking for a new method of supporting his growing family, he and a partner with carpentry skills set out to build and sell new homes. The area of town they were building in was on a hillside. The lots available had several feet of slope, thus requiring high foundations or basements. The basements made sense moneywise, since you could gain usable floor space for the amount you were going to spend on just a foundation. He took a trip to Kansas City to look for suitable plans, as there was many basements built in that part of the country. After building several of these houses, other builders started asking him to build basements on their projects. He soon discovered that he would rather do the basement and foundation part of the house. This became his specialty niche and he became known as, “The one to call,” when a dry basement was needed.

Ken was the first in this part of the country to buy a set of modular forms that could be used and reused many times. After each wall pour, the forms were stacked on to a truck that was ready to go to the next job. He also pioneered handling these forms with a truck-mounted boom. Rather than having to hand carry and stack these forms to and from the truck, the boom itself picked up a stack and set them down in the basement hole. When the walls were poured, you had to restack the forms then set them back on the truck.

In 1973, after graduating from high school, his oldest son, Bill, joined the business. He quickly learned the concrete business and has been the force behind equipment operations. Starting in the early 70’s with a used “Bobcat” loader, the company steadily acquired equipment until we no longer had to wait for or be at the mercy of others to do our excavating. Today our capabilities range from grading floor subgrades with laser controlled equipment, to rock excavation with a hydraulic breaker to road and shale pad construction.

In the early 198O’s, Ken’s youngest son, Brian, joined the business. After this addition, there was a need to broaden the scope of our work. We began to take on more commercial and municipal work along with foundations and basements. Over the years, we have built demolition bunkers, gas well bunkers, box culverts, bridges, racetrack pit walls, amphitheaters, swimming pools, and water filters. The things these projects have in common are concrete and wall forms. Our ability to successfully complete these projects was acquired from our years of building basements.

The business was incorporated in 1991 as McCain Construction Co., Inc. and this is how it exists today.

Bill’s son, William K. (Little Bill) has since joined the business, making him the third generation at McCain Construction CO., Inc. He has taken on the task bringing us into the Internet age of the 21st Century with this website.

Our goal with this site is to educate potential new homebuyers and homebuilders about the advantages and practicality of utilizing a basement in this part of the country.