CALIFORNIA BRICKS


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Castaic Brick Company

History

The Castaic Company began operations in the 1950 at their brickyard at 32300 Old Ridge Route Road, Castaic, Los Angeles County, California. This company is presently producing common brick, split pavers, commercial oversize, and thin brick of various shades of red. The clay is mined by surface scrapers on the property. The clay is conveyed to the storage bin and then conveyed to the grizzly crusher. The ground clay next is conveyed to the pugmill, where it is mixed with ground up brick. Next the clay is vacuumed extruded and wire cut into standard size common brick. After the brick is cured it is placed into two driers and finally fired in a kiln. Plant capacity is 200,000 brick per day. The company has 80-85 employees. Bricks are shipped internationally and is in 2004 the primary supplier of Home Depot stores. The antique red brick often splashed with white cement can be seen in such buildings as Wendys restaurants in Southern California. Some of the names of the brick are Tumbled Red, Typic, Antique, Flash Classic, Chocolate Brown, Tumbled Flash Chocolate Brown, Red, Classic, Chocolate Typic, Flash Burned, and Tumbled Flash. This plant is still in operation as of 2004.


Overview of the Castaic brick plant and clay pit, Castaic, CA.


Castaic brick plant and brickyard, Castaic, CA.


Stacked Castaic bricks in the brickyard.


Castaic Brick


One of the faces of the Antique Castaic brick showing the longitudinal groove and pit marks with cement wash.


Side view of the Antique Castaic brick showing the smooth cement wash face.


One of the faces of the Red Smooth Castaic brick showing the longitudinal groove and pit marks.


Side view of the Red Smooth Castaic brick showing the smooth face with transverse grooves.


End face of the Red Smooth Castaic brick.


The brick is red to cherry red or brown with smooth sides. White cement on certain bricks was applied to give the brick a used look. The top and bottom faces display curved wire cut marks and longitudinal grooves and pits. Smooth sides show minor transverse grooves and stacking impressions. Minor crazing is present. The broken surface displays tiny red specks of ground up brick within a compact clay body. Extruded stiff mud process. Length 7 5/8 - 8, width 3 5/8 - 3 3/4, height 2 1/4.

Source

Castaic Brick Company web site: www.castaicbrick.com.

Howser, Huell. "Brickyard." VHS video.

Copyright © 2004 Dan Mosier

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Comments or questions are welcomed.
Please send email to Dan Mosier at danmosier@earthlink.net.