Although there were exceptions, during the 19th century, concrete was used mainly for industrial buildings. It was considered socially unacceptable as a building material for aesthetic reasons. The first widespread use of Portland cement in home construction was in England and France between 1850 and 1880 by Frenchman Francois Coignet, who added steel rods to prevent the exterior walls from spreading, and later used them as flexural elements. The first home built using reinforced concrete was a servant’s cottage constructed in England by William B. Wilkinson in 1854. In 1875, American mechanical engineer William Ward completed the first reinforced concrete home in the U.S. It still stands in Port Chester, New York. Ward was diligent in maintaining construction records, so a great deal is known about this home. It was built out of concrete because of his wife’s fear of fire, and in order to be more socially acceptable, it was designed to resemble masonry. This was the start of what is today a $35 billion industry that employs more than 2 million people in the U.S. alone.
The Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, completed in 1942, is the largest concrete structure ever built. It contains 12 million yards of concrete. Excavation required the removal of over 22 million cubic yards of dirt and stone. To reduce the amount of trucking, a conveyor belt 2 miles long was constructed. At foundation locations, grout was pumped into holes drilled 660 to 880 feet deep (in granite) in order to fill any fissures that might weaken the ground beneath the dam. To avoid excavation collapse from the weight of the overburden, 3-inch pipes were inserted into the earth through which chilled liquid from a refrigerating plant was pumped. This froze the earth, stabilizing it enough that construction could continue.From The History of Concrete - InterNACHI http://www.nachi.org/history-of-concrete.htm