1887 Otto and Walt Lund and Joseph Johnson purchased land from Pleasant Green Taylor and began constructing an adobe yard in Harrisville. Installed machinery to make pressed brick. Brick makers had an excellent source of raw materials because the clay deposit in Harrisville was deep. When workers drilled the well local on the East side of the plant, it went down over 600 feet and they found clay even at this depth. Over the years, the brick yard changed names several times. It provided work for many of the city’s families in addition to their farming. There was a blacksmith shop on the property which was crucial to their operation and the early settlers. Excavating for clay left large holes that filled with ground water and made great ice skating ponds in the winter. Families would gather in the evenings to skate around in the moon light and warm up by a small fire on the edge of the pond. The sloped hills around the pond were fun to sleigh ride down and sail across the frozen pond. Sadly, a tragedy happened in connection with the ponds in January 1996, two 15 year old boy cousins took a shortcut through the brick yard property on their way to the Harrisville park and fell through thin ice on the ponds while trying to recover their basketball.
Brick Yard, Kilns, Coal, Smoke Stack. Sugar Beets, Swimming Hole, HH
Kilns to bake the brick were fired with coal resulting in billow black smoke from the smoke stack. Brick yard had coal brought in on the Oregon Short Line RR side track and Harrisville people could also buy the coal there to heat their homes. There was a scale in just off West Harrisville Road, and drove their empty wagons or trucks onto the scale to be weighed before they were loaded with coal, and then they were weighed again after loaded to determine how many pounds of coal they needed to pay for.
Residents were happy when the brick yard converted to natural gas in the 1950s. The 140 foot smoke stack of the Hoffman Kiln was taken down 18 Apr, 1975 after the structure was weakened by earthquake northern Utah.
Later, when sugar beets became a successful cash crop. The Oregon Short Line RR sidetrack came to the scale platform to pick up the sugar beets to haul to the sugar factory in Ogden. Farmers would pull their full wagon of beets onto the scales. After it was dumped, the farmer’s wagon was weighed empty and the difference was recorded for payment. Sometimes the beets were dumped into a pile to be loaded later.
Swimming Hole
On the Western Irrigation Canal behind the brickyard was the swimming hole. That is a story for another day.
In 1913 – – – HHI Corporation
HHI turned historical brickyard into a thriving 54 acre construction and manufacturing campus.