California Brickmaker
I believe this is the company that made the bricks for my house. W.D. Trewhitt built the Scally Hotel, and I live in the Scally House.
These sure look like my bricks!
These sure look like my bricks!
History
In 1916, the Southern Pacific Brick Company, or the S.P. Brick Co., was organized by W. H. Shields of Fresno, W. D. Trewhitt of Hanford, and L. E. Hays of Exeter to manufacture common red brick about a half mile northwest of Exeter on Belmont Avenue. The office was located at 435 Powell Building and later 1501 Pacific Southwest Building, Fresno. Trewhitt was president, Hayes was secretary and general manager. About 25 men were employed. By 1919, machinery for the production of hollow tile was added. In 1921, the S.P. Brick & Tile Company was incorporated with a capital stock of $250,000.
View of the S.P. Brick & Tile Company plant. From Franke, 1930.
The clay deposit covered 20 acres. Alluvial gray clay 20 to 40 feet thick was worked by a pit 1,300 feet long by 300 to 500 feet wide. This deposit was exhausted by 1958 and, after that, clay had to be trucked from the excavation at the county dump on Belmont Avenue south of Exeter. At the original clay pit, a 3/8-yard electric shovel was used in mining the clay at a capacity of 200 tons per eight hours.
The clay was hauled to the plant in cars mounted on a track and pulled by mules, where it was dumped into a hopper and passed through a Scott-Madden pulverizer, or a roll disintegrator, from which it was elevated by belt to a set of Hummer screens 12 feet long by 5 feet wide. It then passed to an American pug-mill and auger machine equipped with a Freese cutter, with a capacity of 55,000 bricks per 9 hours. Electric power was used to run the machinery. The wet bricks were stacked on pallets and dried under sheds, capable of holding 550,000 bricks. Drying took three weeks, after which the bricks were trammed to the kilns and loaded.
The tile and brick were fired in six Stewart & Clamp open kilns, using oil atomized as steam as fuel. Each kiln had a capacity of 100,000 bricks. The firing period was 5.5 days, and the kiln turnover cycle was 12 days. Although there were two round Stewart down-draft kilns, they were not used because of the higher cost to operate them. This plant produced in 1930 about 2.5 million bricks and 150,000 to 200,000 hollow tile per year. The bricks were loaded on pallets and shipped by truck or rail. The Southern Pacific railroad ran along the south and east side of the property.
From 1931 to the mid-1940s, the S.P. plant was operated by the San Joaquin Materials Company, based at 744 G St., Fresno. In 1950, the S.P. Brick & Tile Company resumed operations at the plant until about 1982, when it closed. The site is presently being worked by a cement company. The clay pit is still visible as well as a few of the drying sheds of the old brick plant.
The clay was hauled to the plant in cars mounted on a track and pulled by mules, where it was dumped into a hopper and passed through a Scott-Madden pulverizer, or a roll disintegrator, from which it was elevated by belt to a set of Hummer screens 12 feet long by 5 feet wide. It then passed to an American pug-mill and auger machine equipped with a Freese cutter, with a capacity of 55,000 bricks per 9 hours. Electric power was used to run the machinery. The wet bricks were stacked on pallets and dried under sheds, capable of holding 550,000 bricks. Drying took three weeks, after which the bricks were trammed to the kilns and loaded.
The tile and brick were fired in six Stewart & Clamp open kilns, using oil atomized as steam as fuel. Each kiln had a capacity of 100,000 bricks. The firing period was 5.5 days, and the kiln turnover cycle was 12 days. Although there were two round Stewart down-draft kilns, they were not used because of the higher cost to operate them. This plant produced in 1930 about 2.5 million bricks and 150,000 to 200,000 hollow tile per year. The bricks were loaded on pallets and shipped by truck or rail. The Southern Pacific railroad ran along the south and east side of the property.
From 1931 to the mid-1940s, the S.P. plant was operated by the San Joaquin Materials Company, based at 744 G St., Fresno. In 1950, the S.P. Brick & Tile Company resumed operations at the plant until about 1982, when it closed. The site is presently being worked by a cement company. The clay pit is still visible as well as a few of the drying sheds of the old brick plant.
View of the S.P. Brick & Tile Company clay pit and plant. From Goodwin, 1958.
Southern Pacific common brick.
Common brick is orange, orange red, red, and dark red, mostly uniform in color. Smooth surface as expected for extruded brick. A few pits and visible clasts are white subangular quartz and feldpar up to 1/8 inch across, more abundant in the interior than on the surface. Sides may have minor white flashing and longitudinal grooves. Face has angular wire-cut marks. Extruded, stiff-mud process. Length 7 5/8 - 8 5/8, width 3 1/2 - 4, height 2 1/4 - 2 1/2.
I was wondering about the date of the company since the Scally Hotel was built in 1895 and my house in 1908... so a little more research brought me to this article. I'm pretty sure my bricks came from this company now.
LEN EUGENE HAYES.
For thirty years Len Eugene Hayes, vice president and general manager of the S. P. Brick Company, Incorporated, of Exeter, has been connected with the brick and tile industry in California and is now regarded as one of the veterans in that line in this section. He came to California as a young man and became employed in the brick industry in Visalia, a line which ever since has held him, and he thus early became familiar with the details of the manufacture and distribution of brick and tile, gradually going on up in business until he came into his present responsible administrative position, one of the experts in this line of production in California. He is a native of the old Buckeye state but has been a resident of California since the days of his boyhood. He was born in the city of Zanesville, the county seat of Muskingum county, September 12, 1870, a son of John and Susan (Francis) Hayes, the former of whom also was born in Zanesville, a son of Edwin Hayes, who was killed while serving as a soldier in General Scotts army during the time of the Mexican war. Edwin Hayes was a son of Peter Holmes Hayes, who was a soldier of the Patriot army during the time of the War of the Revolution and who became one of the pioneers of the Zanesville settlement, moving over there from Virginia, where the Hayes family has been represented since early colonial times. John Hayes was a merchant in Zanesville and also had an interest in the great pottery and clay products industry there. He was an amateur chemist and in his experiments along that line worked out a process in the early 80s that led to a complete revolution in the practical manufacture of glazed brick and tile, thus becoming a figure in that industry whose name will ever stand high in the history of its development, for it was due to his researches and patient practical experiments that the way was opened for the gradual perfection of the processes which have made the glazed brick industry what it is today.
Reared in Zanesville, Len Eugene Hayes attended the schools of that city and as a boy became familiar with brick kiln operations there. When seventeen years of age, in 1890, he came to California and in Visalia became employed in a brick yard, thus becoming connected with the brick and tile industry in this state, a line which ever since has occupied his attention. He later was employed in this industry in San Francisco and from there went to Richmond, Contra Costa county, and then, in 1908, became located in the brick industry in Exeter, where he ever since has made his home, now the general manager of what is recognized as the biggest and best plant for the manufacture and distribution of brick in the San Joaquin valley. The S. P. Brick Company, Incorporated, of Exeter, is a branch of the S. P. Brick & Tile Company, Incorporated, of Fresno and is a widely recognized leader in its line. W. D. Trewhitt of Hanford is the president of the Exeter company, Harry Shields of Fresno is the secretary and treasurer and Mr. Hayes is the vice president and general manager. This company has a twenty-acre tract in Exeter, on which there are apparently inexhaustible supplies of choice brick clay. Its plant is a thoroughly modern one, equipped with the latest devices for the most efficient production, including a heating oven for winter uses, and represents an investment in excess of one hundred thousand dollars. The excellence of the products of this plant long has recommended them to discriminating builders and a wide market has been created for the brick turned out in Exeter. The company also manuÂfactures tile and these latter products also are in wide demand. Mr. Hayes and two others, own and operate three eighty-acre ranches one of grapes, one fruit, deciduous, and one alfalfa.
On August 11, 1915, in Exeter, Mr. Hayes was united in marriage to Miss Ella Jackson, who also is a native of Ohio, born in Decatur, Brown county, in the old Buckeye state, daughter of Winfield Jackson. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes have one child : A son, Len Eugene Hayes, born in 1917. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes have a pleasant home in Exeter and take an interested and helpful part in the communitys general social activities. Mrs. Hayes is a member of the locally influential Womans Club of Exeter and she and Mr. Hayes are active members of the local chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, of which Mr. Hayes is a past patron. He also is a past worshipful master of the local lodge of the Masonic order and in that order has attained to the highest degrees available to the inquirer, up through the Scottish Rite to the thirty-second degree and including also the Royal Arch and Knights Templar (York Rite) degrees ; present scribe of the Royal Arch Masons ; and also a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. He likewise is affiliated with the loca1 lodge of the Knights of Pythias, and with the Exeter Kiwanis Club.
.JPG)
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