Stanley Brick Part Two - Standing and Fallen

A brief spin around Stanley Wisconsin, looking for traces of the brick yard and its products.

City Hall.  If you have any interest in local architecture you no doubt came to the same conclusion I did.....re-purposed fire station.  The tower for drying hoses is the tip off.  Note the larger arch on the left.  Now covered over it was once the door for the fire engine.

A school building circa 1915.  Now home to the Stanley Area Historical Society.

It was mentioned last time that the Company Store built after the 1906 fire used a million bricks.  That seems like a lot but I'm told it has foundations made not of stone but of something like six foot wide banks of red brick.  It was also part of a complex that additionally included a warehouse and a station for the little rail spur that ran north out of town.  The Store later became Don Smith Sales, a rather fun surplus outlet but is now vacant.  Behind it are pallets of broken brick.  Maybe these are just the ones that fall off periodically.

Another field of broken brick.  Said to be the site of the Stanley Toy Company factory.

This was once a gas station on the edge of town.  Until I learned that the brick yard lingered on into the 1940's I was not suspecting this as being made of local product.  But the red brick color can be seen peeking through the peeling white paint.

And here's something a bit odd.  One of the few buildings remaining at the site of the Northwest Lumber Company mill is this.....a store house for explosives.  I can see how dynamite was needed for stump clearing after logging but am less certain how it was used in the active phase of the operation.  It would also be interesting to know what they were thinking when they redid that door.

In my experience brick yards leave few traces.  They are usually large, with drying racks and wooden storage sheds taking up most of the space.  The Stanley brick yard was once here, on the northern edge of Chapman Park.  It was adjacent to the lumber mill and had its own little rail spur.

Often as not the only remaining traces of a brick making operation are the clay pits.  Which end up as nice little ponds like this one just north of 8th Avenue.