Brickyard

[September 2011 update — Just look at the pretty pictures in this post; don't read the history. I was a wellspring of ignorance when I wrote it.]

Since I mentioned the brickyard a while back, I thought I'd just post a few pictures. It occupied many acres east of Lake Park Avenue and west of the Deep River, north of downtown Hobart and the Pennsy tracks. All that's left now is a water-filled hole in the ground that makes a nice little lake, and thousands of pieces of broken bricks and terra-cotta blocks that you can see scattered over the ground as you walk on the footpath around the lake.

I believe it began as the Kulage Brick Works. Here it is circa 1920:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

With its own rail lines, probably coming off the Pennsy line. Note the absence of crossing gates.

Here's a Kulage ad from Hobart High School's 1926 Aurora:



Later (I don't know when) it was taken over by the National Fireproofing Company, aka Natco.

For some reason, 1924 saw a whole lot of activity at the brickyard, which seemed to involve taking down old buildings, putting up new ones and generally improving the site. Somebody took lots of photographs of that activity and passed them along to the Hobart Historical Society with detailed descriptions. Below are just a few of the many you can see at the museum.

This one is dated April 14, 1924, and captioned: "View from west side of old factory showing buildings and debris practically all cleared away."


(Click on images to enlarge)
This and the following images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

This one is dated April 29, 1924, and caption: "View looking east in front of kilns showing progress on excavation of main collecting flues." In the background, I believe that's the rear of Michigan Avenue. You can see the white frame church with its steeple, toward the left.



This one is undated. At the far right in the background — is that Hobart Cemetery?