and contract construction. Our stock was then closely held. Although we were one of the leading companies in our field, our net worth was only some $14 million and our annual earnings had rarely exceeded $2 million. With the advantage of hindsight perhaps the most important asset we then had was a determination that the time had come to do things differently in the future than we had in the past. So began the transition from the company as it then existed to the company as it is today and as a result we have accomplished these things during the past two decades. We increased the profitability of our heavy construction activity and in 1969 sold virtually all of our heavy construction division assets to the Fluor Corporation, retaining only our hydraulic dredging activities and our limited partnership with Haas and Haynie in building construction. We increased our investment in land development from virtually nothing to approximately $47 million at the close of our last fiscal year. Through an affiliated company we acquired a 46% interest in a fleet of owned and chartered ocean bulk carriers that carried some 133 billion ton miles of freight in calendar 1970. Cutting through the various corporate structures, we expanded our annual share of iron ore shipments from 1. 8 million to 7. 2 million tons, uranium shipments from zero to 2 1/2 million pounds last year, steam coal from zero to 5 1/2 million tons, coking coal from 210, 000 to 3 million tons, and our copper shipments from zero to 31, 222,000 pounds. Through these steps we were able to increase our earnings from $2. 2 million or 20 a share in 1951 to $30. 3 million in 1970, equal to $2. 27 a share on the average shares outstanding and $2. 11 on a fully diluted basis. Our dividend payout is still relatively modest in relation to earnings but it has increased each year for the last 20 years, rising from 4 in 1951 to 65 a share last year. Our net worth has grown from $14 million to over $207 million and in the last year alone it increased by $78 million, an amount greater than the cumulative gain in net worth in the first 66 years of the company's existence. The number of shareholders has increased from a few hundred twenty years ago to 2, 633 ten years ago and now to some 6, 100. Our stock is listed and actively traded on both the Pacific Coast and New York Stock Exchanges.