BRICK MADE FROM LOCAL CLAY

By Orville Josie

(Part of a 1954 History Project)

 

            One of the oldest enterprises in the history of Waupaca and vicinity is the production of making brick from Waupaca clay.

            The origin of this clay has been the subject of a very comprehensive study by several nationally-known geologists because it is one of the very few bi-laminar varvial pre-glacial deposits in Wisconsin.

            E. W. Ellsworth and U. L. Wilgus in collaboration with Borrons Grarad De Gee have correlated the Waupaca deposit as belonging to the Glacial Period prior to the Red Ice Re-advance.  This establishes its origin and deposition between the years 6,867 and 6,956, before the final years of the “Ice Age”.

            The earliest commercial use for brick making dates back to about the year when two men discovered an outcropping just below the John Hom bridge in Waupaca.  This first operation was very crude.  The clay was pugged by hand, pounded into wooden molds, dried in the sun, and later burned in open scone kilns.

            Sometime later, a better exposure of the same clay was located about a mile further south on the river, now the site of the local Waupaca Brick Company where bricks have been produced ever since.

            Judge Chamberlain and Mr. Hansen acquired the property and built a sand mound brick yard.  This was as the “soft mud process” similar to the hand moved process except that the clay was pugged in a horse powered sweek and automatically pressed into molds with a machine.

            In 1908 Conrad Gmeiner purchased the yard from Judge Chamberlain which he operated until 1910 when he tore down the old plant and built what was then considered a modern mechanical sand mold plant.

            About 1920 the sand mold equipment was taken out and machinery and kiln were erected for making a stiff process mechanically for making brick.  The new brick produced by this advanced method were superior in quality and color.  Waupaca textured face brick soon became a product used extensively throughout Wisconsin and adjoining states, for schools, commercial buildings, and residences.

            Brick making today is a far cry from the old antique hand molded process and at this time, now located by the Waupaca Brick Company all processing is automatic.  Today the clay is dried by power shovel and the operation of forming are mechanical.

            The green brick are handled on cars and dried in artificially heated degree tunnels.  Burning is done in permanent round dover draft coal kilns equipped with heat regulators and measuring devices and the Daunt produces brick today by the same mechanical means as used throughout the country.