CALIFORNIA BRICKS
Brand name: CRESCENT
Company: Gladding, McBean and Co.
Location: Lincoln, Placer County, California
Years: 1935-1942
Type: Fire brick
Description: Brand name impressed within rounded rectangular name plate.
Equipment: Pug mills, side-cut and end-cut auger machines, 6 oil-fired round down-draft
kilns.
Capacity: 1,600,000 per year fire brick.
Deposit: Clay pits 1 mile NW from plant on 480 acres. North pit had 10 ft. fire clay, 6 ft. pipe clay,
20 ft. terra cotta clay. South pit had 8 ft. light sandy clay and 7 ft. sandy yellow clay.
Comments: Uncertain exactly which of their plant made the Crescent brand brick, so I'm assigning it to
the Lincoln plant until I learn otherwise. Date range is uncertain, but it appears to be one of their
more modern bricks.
Source: California State Mining Bureau Report 12, 1893-94; California State Mining Bureau Report 15, 1917, p. 322-325;
California State Mining Bureau Bulletin 99, 1928, p. 151-156; Friends of Terra Cotta, Fall 1981 newletter;
Gurcke, Karl, Bricks and Brickmaking, The University of Idaho Press, 1987.
Plant of the Gladding-McBean Co., Lincoln, CA. Taken by author, 2001.
Comments or questions are welcomed.
Please send email to Dan Mosier at danmosier@earthlink.net.