Research tips and McCook Brick Company- solid as a brick

As winter approaches more of us seem to want to delve into all things about family or location history. Consequently, I am getting almost daily questions concerning one or the other. A walking encyclopedia I am not, but I do try to answer as best I can or research the question using Familysearch.org, Newspapers.com or Ancestry.com plus the ever-present Google.

If you have an item that you want more information on, here is a research clue. Snap a picture of great-grandma’s vase, as an example, with your phone. Tap on the share button at the bottom of the picture and then scroll to Google Search Image. Make sure that your photo is of the object only with no background ‘noise’ as I call all the other things on the shelf! You may not always get a result but usually you will at least get a close answer. I love Google Search Image, and you may end up loving it too!

Several articles ago I shared passages from a doctor’s letters to his fiancé as he struggled to establish a practice in early McCook. One of the most interesting parts of his journal was how at night, in his room on Main Street, he sometimes heard the crashing of bricks giving way on a building in downtown McCook. He attributed it to inferior quality bricks which crumbled under the weight of hastily built structures.

Sanborn maps, which were maps created for insurance purposes, shows that McCook had its own brick company, McCook (Pressed) Brick Company, and that it was located approximately one mile east of the Courthouse, which would put it somewhere around East 12th and D Streets or around where Southwest Area Training Center sits today.

“The McCook Pressed Brick Company have been pushing work on their buildings and have purchased some of the finest teams of horses in this section for their work. Their promise, that they will have their plant in operation in sixty days from the time they incorporated, will be kept if possible.” McCook Republican, March 29, 1907.

The Lincoln Land Company had sold approximately two acres to the corporation which was formed on March 15, 1907. Some remarkably familiar names happened to be the incorporators: J.E. Kelly, George S. Craven, J.W. Hatfield, A.S. Ennis, W.J. Porter, P. Walsh, H.P. Waite, and C. I. Hall. While the company seemed to flourish, in 1911, there was a Notice of Sale outlining the property and all the equipment to be sold at auction at the Brick Yard, June 30, 1911. The signees included P. Walsh, H.P. Waite, and J.E. Kelly.

Resurrected as the McCook Brick Company, a new location emerged between Mississippi and Missouri at the west end of McCook. “One of McCook’s Big Business Interests. The McCook Brick Company Plant-Demand for Its Product Strong. A surprise is in store for the one who takes occasion to look over the plant of the McCook Brick Co. From a small and rather inconsequential plant handled by hand labor almost exclusively in the early years, the plant has been developed into a large and modern one, capable of making 40,000 bricks per day, utilizing modern machinery and methods, and producing bricks that pass easily the severe and strict government test, the four per cent water test. (Fact attested by the using of their bricks in the McCook government building in competition with a dozen of the large brick factories of the state.) The plant is now engaged in preparing another burning of brick- 240,000 bricks being burned in their kilns at a time, and it is expected that the run will be completed by today for that purpose.” McCook Tribune, July 3, 1916.

As a note, the building they are referring to is the Federal Building or the old McCook Post Office located on Norris Ave., for which their bricks were tested and approved for use in that building by Government Inspector, L. R. Whitted, a total of half a million bricks expected to be used in the construction.

I had been asked if the West location happened to be where the running track behind the high school is located, and, I’m going to have to assume that it was not. Missouri Ave. is one block west of that location and on the early maps, when Mississippi street existed, it was the block west of Missouri.

What seems strange at this point is that the early map doesn’t show much detail on those two streets, how far they reached north of B street, etc., it will take some time in the Red Willow County Clerks office to clear that issue up!

SWNGS library is in the historic Temple Building, 322 Norris Ave., Room 2-7. Our hours, weather permitting, are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1-4 PM.