Description: WESTERN CLAY MANUFACTURING COMPANY.HARD BRICK 3 5/8 x 8 inch The Western Clay was in Helena Montana at the former site of the Kessler Brick Yard. Todays location of rhe Archie Bray Foundation. The Western Clay Manufacturing Company Historic District contains the relatively intact buildings and structures which once comprised the major brick manufacturing facility in Montana, producing brick for many of the most architecturally and historically significant buildings in Montana. As well, the complex manufactured other important clay products such as paving brick and sewer tile. Begun as a brick factory in Butte, MT by C.C. Thurston in the 1870s, the Butte business was moved to the Helena area in 1883, and bought in 1885 by Nicholas Kessler, a native of Luxemburg, who emigrated to the United States in 1854. Kessler had begun producing brick in another Helena brickyard in 1866. Another major Helena brick maker, Jacob Switzer, operated a brick making facility near his clay pits at Blossburg. In 1905, the Switzer and the Kessler works merged, incorporating the Western Clay Manufacturing Company. By 1915, Western Clay had become Montana's largest clay product manufacturer. Western Clay Manufacturing produced some of the highest quality brick in Montana. Bricks from this plant were specified by architects for some of the most prominent public buildings around the state and can be seen today in such buildings as Fort Harrison in Helena, the Federal Courthouses at Butte and Helena, the Civic Center and the First National Trust Co. in Helena, the state hospital at Galen, the campuses of state universities at Missoula, Bozeman, Butte, Havre, and Dillon, aw well as other buildings as far away as Kalispel and Billings. Today the complex is also home to the Archie Bray Foundation, a ceramics school which grew out of the clay products manufacturing business and which enjoys a national reputation in pottery and the ceramic arts.
Price: 45 USD
Location: Helena, Montana
End Time: 2025-01-23T18:04:23.000Z
Shipping Cost: 8 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Decade: 1900s
Color: Red
Original/Reproduction: Vintage Original
Material: CLAY
