Brick Yards of Chippewa Falls, Part One

To understand the history of brick making in Chippewa Falls you have to remember the reality of a community built around a giant sawmill.  The buildings were made of wood.  They were heated with wood stoves and lit with kerosene lanterns.  There was probably scrap wood everywhere.  You can see where this is headed..

In February 1869 a fire broke out that destroyed most of the commercial district of the town.  Following this there were ordnances passed that required any structure built in the down town area to be fire proof.  That is to say, not out of wood.  Although this does not seem to have been universally adhered to it was obviously a major boost to making things out of brick.  And an entrepreneur stepped up shortly.

This is the earliest known photo of Chippewa Falls.  Undated it dates from either late 1870, sometime in '71 or early '72.  It shows substantial brick buildings as new construction.  So where did the bricks come from?

The first brick making enterprise that I know of - and bear in mind that all the local papers also went up with the fire of '69 - was started by a Captain George Winans.  Why, the embers were only just cooled off when this appeared in the Chippewa Union and Times:

It sounds like an up and coming operation by early summer of that year.  Note the location given, "about two and a half miles west of town".  This will factor in later when I try to locate this pioneer enterprise.  A "lost cow" notice in September of 1869 quotes a Martin Roch, who says his residence was "..one and a half miles from the Falls, near brick yard".  

Business seems to have been good in 1869, despite the loss of 40,000 bricks which were destroyed in the drying process by heavy rains in August of that year.

George Winans was an interesting character.  Like almost everyone else in the early days of Chippewa Falls he was in the lumber business.  Specifically he guided rafts of cut timber down rivers.  Hence the title "Captain".  He continued in this line of work far past the end of the prime timber years, actually sending rafts down the Mississippi quite late in the 19th century.  

One of the big projects for the brick yard was the building of the Tremont House in 1871.  It was a very swank place, and was actually "under the management" of George Winans!  But as it happens, brick buildings can also burn, and that's exactly what happened on a cold January night in 1874.

By that point Winans had sold the brick yard.  In fact he sold it to two men, one of whom had done the brick work for the Tremont.  We'll meet Laycock and Barrett in our next installment.