CALIFORNIA BRICKS
Brand name: DICKEY-TESLA
Company: W.S. Dickey Clay Manufacturing Co. Plant 19
Location: Livermore, Alameda County, CA
Years: 1923
Type: Fire brick
Description: Brand name impressed into face, recessed block letters on a slightly raised
long and narrow name plate with rounded ends centered near the bottom on a face with another
blank name plate centered near the top of the same face.
Equipment: Storage sheds, dry-pan grinding machines, bucket elevator, screens, Bonnet single-screw auger,
stiff-mud extruder, automatic wire cutters, two stamping machines, 10 70-ft. long drying tunnels, 6 round
10 burner gas-fired 26-ft. down-draft kiln, 2 15-ft. muffle kiln, 3 rectangular stacks 50 ft. high
Deposit: Fire clay bed, 12 feet thick, from the Ryan Ranch clay deposit at Tesla. 50 tons of fire
clay was shipped to the Livermore plant to make test fire bricks.
Comments: This brand name was applied to a small run of test bricks made at the W. S. Dickey Clay
Manufacturing Company's plant in Livermore in 1923. The evidence for this comes from two reports about
Tesla clay being used in 1923 and another fire brick made at this plant called "Premier" which has
the same size and style of font on the same name plate as the Dickey-Tesla brick. I'm aware of only
two of these bricks, one found in Livermore and another in Martinez, indicating that some of this brick
was shipped out of town. This plant was formerly operated by the Livermore Fire Brick Company,
established in 1910. I thank Art Hull and Garry Rodrigue of Livermore for helping me with this
research. For further details about this company, see
W. S. Dickey Clay Manufacturing Company, Plant No. 19, Livermore.
Source: California Division of Mines and Geology v. 46, no. 2, 1950; Mosier, Dan, History of Brickmaking in the
Livermore Valley, Livermore Heritage Guild, February 1983; Livermore Journal 7/27/1923; Brick & Clay
Record v. 63, no. 4, 1923, p. 274.
Comments or questions are welcomed.
Please send email to Dan Mosier at danmosier@earthlink.net.