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| There's been a bit of discussion and speculation about brick and tile work in Hardin County Iowa in the thread at: http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=601761&mid=500...
I've been digging into 1900 era reports on geology for the individual counties. Each report has had a section on economic materials and in that a section on clay. At least in Story, Hamilton, Hardin, and Wright counties that I've downloaded and read every county in the quarter century before 1900 had at least half a dozen commercial brick and tile works some making hand formed brick, but most with commercial machinery. These reports say that there were several more brick and tile works in earlier years. Most got their clay from stream banks and probably their coal supply the same way, but some shipping in clay from major production areas like Lehigh. Of course, by 1900 there was a dedicated rail line between Webster City and Lehigh.
So brick and tile works mostly using local clays were active to make building towns, barns, and houses of glazed clay tile and normal bricks were working from fairly early settlement time, like post civil war in Iowa. Likely in some counties bricks were easier to get than timber and weathered better.
Gerald J. |
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Sac & Story county IA | I had some tiles in pickup one day. Talked to a friend in town. He saw the tile and he told me those are from the Auburn tile plant. That plant closed about 1910. 3 inch ID tile.
An acquaintance bought an old brick house near Neil Smith Wildlife Refuge. Those bricks were made on site. |
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North Central Iowa | Below is a link to the Ridgestone Golf Course in Sheffield. The course was built on part of the site of the Brick and Tile Company. Some of the buildings are still standing across the road to the east of the golf course. They are privately owned and used as storage. Just a little history I came across when I google Sheffield Brick and Tile. Sorry I don't know how to make the link active.
http://www.ridgestonegolf.com/us/history/ |
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Beresford SD | http://www.ridgestonegolf.com/us/history/ |
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Beresford SD | Gerald
I look forward to your pictures and history of your area. Thanks for taking the time. |
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NC Iowa | here is a picture of my glazed tile barn, built in 1917. i don't know where the tile cane from. i a assume sheffield iowa. there are aprox. 5200 tiles. i counted them once when i was a kid. had to be railed in to town and hauled out by a team and wagons.
Edited by gene_champ 1/3/2016 17:56
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| Some of the early brick and tile workers were immigrants from the colonial part of the US or from Europe who had worked on the same products before coming to Iowa is what I saw in some genealogy books.. They weren't always youngsters when they got busy establishing businesses in Iowa.
I have no doubt many a brick was made on the farm where it was used, when there was wood or coal and some form of clay available. Some of the geological reports mentioned several types of clay with different firing qualities and that sometimes topsoil loam got mixed in too, but made the brick less sturdy. It appeared on the small kilns like I figure would have been used on the farm it may have taken a week to fire one batch of bricks, but in those days they weren't distracted by radio or TV or even many parties in the nearest town and didn't figure on completing the house or barn in 3 weeks, a couple of years worked if they survived the winters.
Likely the many early brick and tile works that didn't survive to 1900 ran out of customers, weren't willing to sell for competitive prices because their hand made products cost too much to make compared to the newer works with machinery for clay mixing, extruding, drying, and big kilns for firing bit batches, dug all the good clay out of their sources, or they weren't spring chickens and retired or died. Then Edwin Perkins in Hardin County made enough money he bought large (for that era) chunks of farm land and put his later life emphasis on farming instead of brick making and brick laying. Perhaps he trained others in these trades too.
Gerald J. |
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central Iowa | Eldora had 2 brick and tile factories back in the day. A hill in town still is referred to as " Pottery Hill " I have seen photographs of one of the plants,
and a sketch of one in an old newspaper.
My wife's grandfather used to fire the kilns at Lehigh. He came from Italy, as did a lot of Lehigh residents. The Lehigh Cemetery has quite a few
headstones made from glazed field tile. They lay horizontally and have decorative ends to close them up. The names and dates are scratched into the
clay before firing. I found this very interesting, and assumed the families worked at the plant and of course were of modest means. |
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West Texas | The local brick co (Snyder Brick) closed a couple of years ago. For the 20 years that I have been in the area, it has opened and closed 3 or 4 times. Think maybe this time the doors were barred shut. Seems like the most common complain was that they had to ship the brick too far to be competitive. |
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| Balzy - 1/3/2016 15:34
Eldora had 2 brick and tile factories back in the day. A hill in town still is referred to as " Pottery Hill " I have seen photographs of one of the plants,
and a sketch of one in an old newspaper.
My wife's grandfather used to fire the kilns at Lehigh. He came from Italy, as did a lot of Lehigh residents. The Lehigh Cemetery has quite a few
headstones made from glazed field tile. They lay horizontally and have decorative ends to close them up. The names and dates are scratched into the
clay before firing. I found this very interesting, and assumed the families worked at the plant and of course were of modest means. You from Eldora area? My mom and dad graduated from Whitten high. Grandpas farm was 2 miles north of Whitten |
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Iowa - Floyd County | There used to be a brick and tile plant in Rockford, IA. It is now part of the Fossil & Prarie Park owned by the County and a few of the kilns are still there. I don't really know much more about it than that.
Link is to the county website and the photos are from around 1960 according to the web.
http://www.fossilcenter.com/B&T2.html
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| Digging for clay and coal sure would expose fossils. That's a fairly big pit.
Gerald J. |
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| The 1900 geological report mentioned in my other thread, said there were three in Eldora plus Edwin Perkins' three or four miles north and one in Gifford. And the there had been several more in the previous quarter century. Plus one in Iowa Falls. Likely every town and village with that vintage brick buildings had their own works or someone went portable with temporary kilns and mostly hand work. By 1900 the remaining works were all filled with machines for working the clay, drying the clay, and forming the clay, plus multiple kilns for firing the clay. Not exactly farm stead sized enterprises. But I still think farmstead projects were possible using a pile of dirt to make a temporary kiln that only survived one firing.
Gerald J. |
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Iowa - Floyd County | I was curious so I just took some measurements on Google Maps, it looks like there was about 30 acres total excavated and there are about 15 acres of open pits now. I spent plenty of time there as a kid(only live 10 miles away, went to school in Rockford) and its a pretty neat place, pits are 100+ feet deep. Don't know much about the actual Brick & Tile Compant though. |
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central Iowa | Yep, grew up and still farm 1/2 mile from jct of hwy 175 and Whitten blacktop east of Eldora. Should know them or know the name anyway. What is it ? |
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nc ia | I remember Rockford brick and tile like " yesterday " for some reason. I went with dad to pick up 5" and 12" tile in 67and 68. Knew the area company surveyor that lived in Charles City. He gave us a tour of the plant and showed how the machinery worked. I then under stood why the tile ends were never square. The extruder never stopped,but tile was cut off to lengths on the go, so a slight angle cut. That's why the bigger the tile, we had a man be hind the crumer , spin the tile to tighten up the gap. He also showed us the kilns and how they load and unloaded them. In 1970 ,the year I graduated, I was in FFA and was aloud to spend 1 wk at the plant to learn how to survey tile and layout. After that the plant started to handle ADS plastic tile, which we were the first in the county to use. The tile seemed a little soft so we welded a 5" well pipe cut in half to the bottom of the crumer to support the tile. I happened to dig that tile up 2 yrs ago and it was still in perfect condition. In 1974 we started to go to Shefield Iowa to get Hancor tile that was heavier built. I don't remember when the Rockford plant closed but the plastic tile was the end of clay fired tile. |
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| Today there is an ADS operation west of the Airport at Hampton. I don't know if they make the plastic tile there or just warehouse it and distribute it.
Plastic in long rolls is a lot handier to install than individual tile, but I have some concrete tile on my farm that I believe has been there since 1907 and some glazed clay tile too, an 18 inch main that is way too small for the area it drains.
Gerald J. |
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19th century brick and tile works in north central Iowa
