Cheney Limestone Company was founded in 1946 by F.G. "Sky" Cheney, a road builder from Williamston, Michigan. Through his travels, he was aware of a high quality limestone deposit in Bellevue and approached the then defunct cement company who owned much of the land about purchasing it. His parents were farmers and he knew the value of agricultural lime and hoped to produce aglime and stone from this source. As luck would have it, the cement company no longer had any need for this land and sold much of it to Mr. Cheney.

Mr. Cheney then partnered with his brother-in-law, Gerald Croope, to form the company. The two men started excavating the limestone and crushed it into lime with some used equipment from the 1930's. It was an immediate success with farmers from miles around coming to purchase the high calcium lime that they needed to improve the yield of their crops.

Through the years, the company has excavated limestone from several different locations around Bellevue. Each location has been reclaimed into beautiful ponds and home sites. The current, all electric processing plant at 9400 Sand Road was built in 1996 and continues to produce the same lime and stone products that were first introduced to the local market over 75 years ago.