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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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19th century brick and tile works in north central Iowa
