THE WAUPACA COUNTY POST

July 25, 1991

 

WHEN THEN WAS NOW

By Wayne A. Guyant

 

 

            When the first white settlers come to the Waupaca area in 1849, they initially built their crude shanties of logs, using blankets to cover the doorways and any windows.  These crude abodes served them well until such time that a better home could be built.

            It was not long before saw mills and planing mills came into operation, but most of the first lumber had to be hauled long distances.  Some of the lumber came by boats to Gill’s Landing, on the Wolf River, and had to be hauled overland from there to Waupaca by oxen.

            As lumber became more available, frame buildings were being erected, and soon after, a new source of material for the fireplaces and chimneys, other than the field stones found in the area, came into existence.

            An article that appeared in the Waupaca County Post, January 4, 1945, made note that Waupaca had been identified with a brick industry since pioneer days.

            The picture combined with this story was loaned to me by the Waupaca Historical Society for this story.  This is a picture of the Waupaca Brick Yard, owned and operated by Conrad Gmeiner in the late 1920s.  The eight funny-shaped structures that resemble corncribs were drying sheds, for drying the green brick.  The green brick remained in these drying sheds for about one week.

            Mining the clay was strictly manual labor at first.  The clay was shoveled into two-wheeled carts and hauled by one horse from the clay pit to the mixing shed, which stands at the left side of the picture.

            The 1874 plat map of the Township of Waupaca shows two 40 acre parcels in Section 32 belonging to Isaac N. West; this property in later years was owned by Chas. Churchill, whom Churchill Street was named after.  This property you will best remember as the Merle Pennebecker place on Apple Tree Lane, Isaac N. West and his son, Newton, manufactured brick from the clay pit on the 40 on the south side of the Crystal River, before it empties into the Waupaca River.  There was another pioneer brick yard that was referred to as the Webb Brick Yard.  It was located further down stream on the north side of the Waupaca River.

            The 1889 plat map of the Township of Waupaca shows this property as belonging to William J. Chamberlain, and it shows a brick yard in Section 33.  This is the first true indication of any brick yard in the area.  William J. Chamberlain purchased this tract of land from G. L. Lord on November 28, 1881.  William J. Chamberlain and his son, Elmer, owned the property until March 24, 1903, when it was sold to Conrad Gmeiner, who operated the brick yard until June of 1944, when it was sold to Elmer Dushek.

            The Waupaca Record of April 1903, mentioned that Con Gmeiner had recently purchased the brick yard property, the former Chamberlain property, and was going to purchase some new and modern machinery in the fall, at a cost of $2,000, and he expected to make the Waupaca plant one of the best in the northwest.

            In the early ‘30s, the Waupaca Brick Yard was a place where the young men of high school age could find summertime employment.  The brick yard only operated from April to November.

            The early ‘30s were rough, and you were lucky to have a job.

            Edwin “Eddie” Pope told me that he was a water boy there as a young lad, carrying water to the men.

            As time passed, new technique in brick making came about.

            Mercedes Sundby was interviewed by the Waupaca County Post in 1980.  She told the Post that she started work at the Waupaca Brick Yard right out of high school as a secretary and a general handyman.  She remained associated with the brick business, off and on for 50 years.

            The Conrad Gmeiner Brick Yard was doing well.  It employed about 32 people, and the pay was from 30 cents to 45 cents per hour.  There were only three “bee hive” kilns in operation at the time.

            The following information comes from Elmer Dushek, who purchased the controlling interest in the Conrad Gmeiner and Sons Inc. Brick Yard in June of 1944, where he employed between 15 and 25 people.

            The one-horse, two-wheeled cart had long given way to the steam crane that used a 40 foot boom and a clam bucket to mine the clay.  Now there were five kilns looking like giant bee hives.

            The quantity and the quality of the clay was excellent, lying only a few feet belong the top layer of sand and gravel.  Mining clay became quite complicated here as the Waupaca and Crystal Rivers joined at this point.  This required diking the river and pumping the pit at all times.  An electric pump mounted on a float and used to pump the water from the bottom of the pit.  One of the pits was approximately four acres in area and 80 feet deep.

            A 24 inch gauge railroad, powered by a gasoline donkey engine, pulled two side dump cars that hauled the clay out of the pit and delivered it to the storage shed, where an overhead electric crane with a clam bucket moved the clay into the building where it was ground and mixed to make the brick.  Mike Tarr was the steam crane operator and Bob Prochnow was the donkey driver.

            In 1938 a 16mm movie was made of Waupaca and its people.  This has been transferred to video, and copies can be purchased.  The Waupaca Library has the film on loan.  One segment shows scenes of the Waupaca Brick Yard, and the donkey engine pulling the two side dump cars, dumping the clay directly into the mixing shed before the storage shed was built.

            Emil “Peg” Abrahamson was the plant foreman and brick machine operator.  Hans Anderson and Ken Nichols were the premiere brick pitchers.  They pitched the fresh dried brick (not fired) up to the brick setters in the kiln before firing.  Herschel Heath and Chris Schroeder, among others, were brick setters.  Gerhardt Sannes, Marlin Opper, Alfred Thiel, among others, were firemen.

            Firing, of course, was a round the clock job, which accounted for four men on three shifts, plus weekends, Bob and Wally Niemuth, Reuben Abrahamson and several other high school boys were brick pitchers. There are two other names that come to my mind:  Wilbur Larson and Harold Buck.

            When the brick machine was in operation, it would extrude and cut 6,000 bricks per hour.  These extruded bricks were soft clay, just firm enough to be handled carefully and placed on a car.  A conveyor belt took the brick from the cutter that was traveling just fast enough to allow about five inches between each brick.

            It was the job of the three pickers to pick up two bricks, one in each hand, turn around and place them on the “dried” car, turn around and there would be more bricks in front of them.  This continued at the rate of 6,000 bricks per hour.

            It was a matter of pride for the pickers to allow only a minimum of bricks to go over the end.

            The drier cars were steel, and arranged so that the air could circulate around the brick. These cars also traveled on a 24-inch gauge rail, carrying about 500 bricks.  These were transferred into the tunnel drier that was heated by waste heat.  It took 24 to 48 hours to dry the brick before they were ready to be set in the kiln for firing.

            The tunnel driers replaced the old drier sheds that resembled corncribs.  The waste heat was the heat that was released mechanically from the fired kiln to the tunnel drier while it was cooling down.

            On temporary tracks, the drier cars were switched into the kiln, where the brick pitchers tossed two bricks at a time to the setters who placed them in a precise position for correct heat transfer by exposing the greatest surface of the brick to the heat.  The kilns had a capacity of 40,000 to 60,000 bricks at each setting.

            After bricking up the doors, eight fireboxes around the kiln would gradually heat the entire mass to about 1,960 degrees F.  Melting cones of clay, which were about three inches in length, were placed in various places in the kiln to spot and signal possible overheating.  There was also an electric thermometer set strategically in the kiln to charter the temperature throughout the firing.  This process took five to seven days to complete, and it took another several days for the kiln to cool down.

            Waupaca clay naturally burned to a deep, red color.  However, for a variation of color, some kilns were finished off by adding pure zinc to the fire at the end of the firing and smoking.  Smoking was actually smothering the fire to make it smoke.  The chemical reaction of the zinc and molten clay left a permanent greenish, or tan color to the brick.

            Elmer Dushek told me that they used to buy all of the old zinc canning jar covers that he could.  Another source was the Feinberg Junk Yard.

            Following cooling, the kilns were unloaded as quickly as possible, to start the cycle over again.  The lower brick in the kiln would not get as hot and would have to be sorted out as common brick, while the greater portion would grade out as high-quality face brick.

            The wide range of colors set a standard for quality face brick in central Wisconsin.

            Mr. Dushek sold to several sizeable post-war housing projects.  One was in Mundelein, IL, which was 150 homes, and another was in Neenah, with 40 houses.

            The larger projects demanded a continuous supply of brick, which in turn required them to operate most of the winter months.  Winter operation increased the cost considerably and proved to be non-economical.

            The kilns required a large amount of hand labor.  Then, too, the clay mining costs kept rising as they went deeper, requiring more diking and more pumping.

            In 1953 Charley Schultz, a young ceramics engineer, was hired with the intent of making the operation more automatic.  In 1954 he formed the Badger Ceramics Corp., and lease-purchased the plant.  Badger Ceramics built a new, small continuous kiln that was more labor saving.

            However, with labor and mining costs on the rise, it used up any efficiency produced by the kiln.  They experimented with clay shipped in from other areas, but no changes seemed to ease the economic pressure, and Badger Ceramics turned the plant back to Elmer Dushek, who in turn, sold it to Edwin Pope in 1963.

            Mr. Pope operated the plant for a couple of years and then leased it to Graff Brick Co. of Waupaca, Inc., which filed for Article of Incorporation on May 25, 1965, who operated it only a short time before closing permanently.

            Folks who have the privilege of enjoying the Pope river bend picturesque canoe trip may well remember seeing, at the point of disembarkation, what the Waupaca Brick Yard looked like before it was dismantled, only a couple of years ago.