California Pressed Brick Company (site) (Fremont, California)

USA / California / Sunol / Fremont, California
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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.

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.

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Coordinates:   37°35'29"N   121°57'11"W

Comments

  • I grew up in Niles. My neighbor, Joe Rose, worked there. I remember he made clay pipes. I grew up in a victorian house on second street, on the block northeast of the post office. My father lifted our house because it had a redwood foundation, and Joe Rose and my dad (Howard Riggs, town butcher - Quality Meets), built a beautiful foundation and front porch of red brick from the pottery. Later they built a brick backyard barbecue and a raised brick fence with redwood on top. Joe built a beautiful brick front porch and fence across the front of the house, and a brick patio in the back. I remember my father using broken pottery for drainage under a new garage he built.
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