CALIFORNIA BRICKS
Brand name: L.A.P.B.CO. (many lugs)
Company: Los Angeles Pressed Brick Company
Location: Office at 406-414 Frost Bldg., Second and Broadway, Los Angeles, CA. Los Angeles plant at 952 Date St.,
Los Angeles, CA, covers 13 acres with three railroad switches to the yard.
Years: 1887-1925
Type: Paver
Description: Abbreviated company name impressed into the face off-centered to the left between two
rows of nine rectangular-shaped protruding lugs.
Equipment: Los Angeles Plant: 13 round, down-draft kilns, 4 terra cotta muffle kilns, 8 rectangular muffle kilns,
31 oil-burning kilns, 10 dry pans, 4 face-brick presses, 4 fire-brick presses, 3 tile and sewer-pipe presses,
a steam power plant of 1000 h.p. boiler capacity, 2 Corliss engines (250 and 450 h.p.), 2 compressors, 2 pumps,
divided into two units, one for brick and one for tile. Bricks were dried in waste-heat driers drawn from the muffle
kilns by a large fan.
Deposit: Alberhill fire clay deposit 20 ft. thick, overlain by 10 ft. of blue clay and some reddish plastic clay.
Comments: Hauled to Gypsum Station on the Santa Fe RR and to company plant in Los Angeles. This company merged
with Gladding, McBean and Company in 1926.
Source: California State Mining Bureau Bulletin 99, 1928, p. 101; California State Mining Bureau Report 15,
1917, p. 494; California State Mining Bureau Preliminary Report 7, 1920, p. 53-55; Architect and
Engineer, v. 28, no. 1, November 1909, p. 14; Architect and Engineer, v. 28, no. 2, December 1909, p. 108-109.
Comments or questions are welcomed.
Please send email to Dan Mosier at danmosier@earthlink.net.