Brickmakers
CALIFORNIA BRICKS
Home Page | Brickmakers
California Pressed Brick Company
History
In 1907, a large deposit of clay was discovered in the mouth of Niles Canyon while
making an excavation for the new Western Pacific Railway Company's line. This deposit
was located one mile east of Niles (now incorporated as the City of Fremont), on the
south side of Alameda Creek. Several businessmen in Niles quickly formed a company
to purchase the 53-acre tract, mine the clay, and build a brick-making plant. They
formed the California Pressed Brick Company, with a capital stock of $1,000,000, divided
into 1,000,000 shares.
The first officers and directors of the company were Jackson Dennis, President; J. J.
Rutledge, Vice-President; and F. A. Allardt, Clarence Crowell, and Paul Furst, Directors.
The company headquarters was located at the Niles State Bank, Niles, California.
John S. Smith was hired as the ceramic engineer and who was responsible for the
building of the brick plant and kilns. He was a native of Durham, England, born on
December 31, 1845. He came to the United States in 1869, and first went to Jackson
County, Missouri, where he embarked in the trade of carriage maker. He then studied
ceramics and found a position with the C. W. Raymond Company, Dayton, Ohio, for
which he erected several brick plants in Minnesota and South Africa. Shortly after
returning from South Africa in 1905, he came to California and found employment
with the California Pressed Brick Company to design and build their brick plant.
Smith remained with this company until 1910, when illness forced him to resign.
He died on February 6, 1911, at his home in San Leandro.
The plant and machinery was described to be similar to that used at the Carnegie
Brick and Pottery Company in San Joaquin County. Using horse scrapers, clay was taken
from a pit located on the hillside behind the plant and stored in corrugated iron sheds
with a capacity of 2,800 yards of clay. The clay was conveyed to the dry pans by a tram
and hoist drums. There were two 9-ft. dry pans, made by Raymond and American. From the
dry pans the material was taken to screens by elevators and after mixing, taken by a
belt conveyor to a 12-ft. Raymond pug mill, which discharged by gravity into a Raymond
auger brick machine. After passing the Raymond delivery and cutting tables, the bricks
were carried on drying cars to concrete drying tunnels. 500 cars were used to pass through
two sets of tunnels of 12 each by gravity. The dried bricks were stacked in six round
down-draft kilns, each with a capacity of 85,000 brick, one continuous 7-chambered gas-fired
kiln, with a capacity of 65,000 brick to the chamber, and an oil-burning case kiln with
a capacity of 750,000 brick. The plant was powered by two large boilers and one small
one fitted for oil burning, the oil being delivered direct from cars into a pump, and a
large Bates-Corliss engine.
The deposit contained plastic clays, soft yellow and blue shales, surface clay mixed with
disintegrated sandstone, and soft sandstone. This clay was tested and suitable for pressed
building brick and conduits for electric wires. Early products from the Niles plant were
common building brick and vitrified paver. The paver was light-fired and embossed with
large raised letters on the face spelling "NILES". The pavers were not good enough for
streets, but San Francisco architects liked to use them for building bricks. These bricks
were produced from 1909 to 1911, and sold to local brick yards around the San Francisco Bay.
About 50 men were employed at the plant during this period. Because the price of building
bricks was depressed, this company was not successful in selling its bricks, and was forced
to close by August 1911.
The clay was tested for other products. A. L. Solon, a ceramic chemist from England, made
exhaustive tests of the Niles clay. He found that the clay was suited for the manufacture of
wall and floor tile, sewer pipe, conduit, roofing tile, terra cotta and pottery. On that note,
the company planned to produce wall and floor tile, glazed brick, and vitrified pavers. In
May 1912, they hired L. H. Mueller, from the Denny-Renton Clay & Coal Company, Seattle,
Washington, to manage the plant. Edward A. Ellsworth was elected the new President and
William Curtner, Secretary. Ellsworth had an insurance partnership with F. V. Jones in
Niles. It was during this period that the brick plant became locally known as the Ellsworth
and Jones brickyard. Mueller had experimented with vitrified paving brick which continued to
be sold. But by 1913, the California Pressed Brick Company had failed to make mortgage
payments and foreclosure proceeding were filed by the Oakland Bank of Savings. Numerous
litigations were filed against this company forcing its closure.
View of the plant when is was called the Mission Pottery, with
stacks of clay pipe in the yard. Note the plant and the two round
down draft kilns. The old brick plant was modified to manufacture
sewer pipe when this picture was taken in 1992.
In 1915, the California Pottery Company, based in Oakland, made an offer to purchase the
Niles plant and property for $60,000, for the purpose of expanding its sewer pipe operations.
In 1923, the California Pottery Company shipped clay from the Niles clay pit to the
its plant in Oakland. From 1929 to 1931, the California Pottery Company operated under name
of the Western Clay Products Company, which closed its Oakland plant in 1931 and moved it to
the Niles site to produce tile, terra cotta, flue linings, and sewer pipe. In 1960, Ben
Garrett of Mission Clay Products, based in Orange, California, purchased the sewer pipe plant
and continued the manufacture of sewer pipe and roofing tile. The plant was operated by
SRDC, Incorporated, when it closed in the late 1990s and has since been dismantled.
Niles Brick
Paving brick is pale red to red, mostly uniform in color. Sides and ends are smooth and
show faint transverse extrusion striations. The sides show camphored repressed edges, which
are rounded, but not on the ends. Top face shows diagonal wire cut marks. The bottom face
shows diagonal wire cut marks overprinted with the brand name NILES in raised block letters
centered on the face. The letters span a length of 7 5/8 inches and has a height of 2 3/4
inches. A slightly raised plate outline is 8 1/4 inches long by 3 inches high. The interior
red clay body contains tiny, up to 1/16-inch, white round to subrounded minerals. No iron
spots are visible. Some surfaces may display some tiny pits and cracks. The brick is heavy,
hard, and well formed. Stiff-mud extruded process. Length 9 1/2, width 4 1/8, height 2 3/4.
View of the side of the Niles brick. Note the repressed marks around the edges.
View of the bottom face of the Niles brick.
View of the end of the Niles brick.
Source
Brick and Clay Record, v. 38, no. 1, 1911, p. 85.
Brick and Clay Record, v. 38, no. 2, 1911, p. 134.
Brick and Clay Record, v. 38, no. 6, 1911, p. 345.
Brick and Clay Record, v. 38, no. 8, 1911.
Brick and Clay Record, v. 39, no. 2, 1911, p. 74.
Brick and Clay Record, v. 40, no. 11, 1912, p. 517.
Brick and Clay Record, v. 41, no. 2, 1912, p. 157.
Brick and Clay Record, v. 43, no. 12, 1913, p. 1275.
Brick and Clay Record, v. 46, no. 6, 1915, p. 590.
Burda, Ron, All That Oozes Isn't Just Mud, San Jose Mercury News, The Weekly, January 16, 1985.
California Division of Mines, Mines and Mineral Producers Active In California 1997-1998, Special
Publication 103, 1999, p. 65.
Holmes, Phil, The Ellsworth Family, Tri-City Voice, January 20, 2004.
Livermore Echo, March 11, 1909, p. 1.
Livermore Herald, June 13, 1908, p. 7.
Niles Register, January 8, 1931.
Niles Register, March 5, 1931.
Niles Register, July 30, 1931.
Oakland Tribune, August 1, 1907.
Copyright © 2006 Dan Mosier
Home Page | Brickmakers
Comments or questions are welcomed.
Please send email to Dan Mosier at danmosier@earthlink.net.