Brick Yard Fire01

Waupaca County Post

January 4, 1945

WAUPACA BRICK YARD CRIPPLED BY $15,000 FIRE

Saturday Night Blaze Put Twenty Men Out of Work

Saturday evening Clark Redfield noticed that there was afire at Waupaca brick yard as he was driving to the city.

He contacted Mr. Dushek, who was having supper at a local restaurant, at seven p.m. Mr. Dushek turned in the fire alarm and hurried back to the yard arriving at about 7:20. The Fire company arrived and extinguished the fire where it started in the clay drier building and spread to the brick (?) or Argillar building.

Much valuable equipment was stored in the latter building and the locomotive was stored in the clay drier building which were not covered by insurance. The total loss is estimated at $14,000 and only partially covered by insurance.

Another feature of the loss is the difficulty of procuring equipment under present war times restrictions of civilian goods. The brick industry at Waupaca has suffered under the building restrictions that have prevailed due to war needs for the past three years and now faces another period of inactivity during the attempts to rebuild under present business conditions.

The clay at the old Gmeiner brick yard is among the best quality for making high quality brick of all the clay deposits in United States and the yard has been a great asset to Waupaca for half a century.

It is an open secret that the Wisconsin Unemployment Law made it impossible for Waupaca brick yard to run during the winter months with a reduced number of helpers since the benefits paid to men employed in summer and laid off for the dull winter months so reduced the income that it was made difficult to pay those who were employed by the year and had been the backbone of the institution for scores of years. The Progressive Wisconsin legislation was the start of the breakdown of Waupaca’s oldest industrial plant.

That was followed by invitation of a labor organization movement that further complicated the business at the old brick yard on the banks of the river.

Waupaca community keenly feels the succession of losses that have been inflicted upon the brick industry that has been identified with Waupaca since pioneer days, back when Isaac West and his son, Newton West, owned the 80 acres that later became the metropolitan home of the late Chas. Churchill. The Wests manufactured brick from a clay pit across the river from the Gmeiner yard, for nearly a score of years.

The old R.R. Roberts store building, if memory and tradition serve to faithfully, which graced the site now occupied by the First National bank building, erected in the early 1850’s, was the one Waupaca building covered with Milwaukee yellow brick. Other brick buildings in Waupaca and throughout the surrounding community were built of brick from the yards along Waupaca river that were opened for business some years before the Civil War.