Brick Yards of Chippewa Falls - Part Three

The Laycock and Barrett brick yard probably got off to a great start.  Chippewa Falls was growing, and they had the inside track.  But times were changing.  There is a gap of several years in the on line version of local newspapers, so all I can say for certain is that sometime in the mid 1870's this partnership went away.

There were a few mentions of brick yards in the 1880's.  There was a George Robson of whom it was said: "He will probably operate his brick yard in this city the coming summer if he does not sell out before the season opens".  That was in March, 1888.  In August of the same year an I.B. Taft was supposedly intending to start a brick yard on his farm.  

But a real revival of the industry had to wait for J.B. Theriault .  As you can see from the link, we've met him before.  He caught my attention early as his are, to date, the only marked bricks from our town.

Theriault's brick yard was on the western edge of town.  From the various descriptions of earlier yards I'm assuming they were all in the same general area.  There was, still is actually, a nice vein of good clay to be had there.  But as we shall see, that's not enough.

John Theriault got his operation up a bit late in 1890 but still had a good season.  He sold all the bricks he could make, employed 20 men, and was aiming to double production the next year.  I've shown this in the linked post, but here's a view of part of his plant.  Keep in mind that brick yards are sprawling places.  Lots of kilns, drying racks, clay pits, etc.  

There were actually two brick yards working the same vein of clay by about 1900.  Below is a Birds Eye view that shows the adjacent Goulet brick yard and gives a better sense of the scale of the operation by 1907.

A reporter for the local paper visited the Theriault brick yard in 1893, and had a lot to say about it.  The clay was said to be of a quality equivalent to the highly successful brick yards in Menomonie.  The proprietor had invested $11,000 in the buildings and equipment and employed 25 men.  Some of them lived on site at a boarding house with "a first class cook". * 

The capacity of the plant was 40,000 bricks a day, although it was only doing 30,000.   It was mentioned that the new addition to St. Joseph's Hospital, as well as many buildings up in Rice Lake, had recently been completed using Theriault bricks.  But there was that recurring problem.....

Theriault was handicapped by having no rail road spur.  Efforts to obtain one came to naught.

Eventually this impediment proved fatal.  Bricks, so long as the quality is good, are all the same.  And for big projects it would only be natural to go with the lower bidder, this usually being the yard that could eliminate some contribution to the expenses.  Like that extra shipping.  

By the mid 1890's Theriault was making 1,200,000 bricks a year.  But was still only running at half capacity.  The other yard, adjacent to his, had several owners.  French Lumber Company brick yard, Goulet and Bergeron yards, and the Chippewa Brick Manufacturing Company. 

Although both brick yards dwindled in the early 20th century and seem to have been gone circa 1915, there are still traces of their presence.  It now has nice new homes on cul-de-sacs, but there are three ponds, at least some of which were clay pits where material for making bricks had been excavated.  Potentially since the late 1860s!

* The first class cook at the Theriault brick yard boarding house was Zele Fourboul.  We've met her, her unfortunate spouse and her murderous step son in a previous installment!