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. The complex still houses a significant collection of late 19th and early 20th century brick and tile manufacturing machinery and apparatus.
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.
WESTERN CLAY MANUFACTURING COMPANY
Englishman C.C. Thurston established a brickyard at this site in 1883. One of his employees was Charles Bray, a fellow Britisher, who had served an apprenticeship in brickmaking before leaving England. In 1885, Nicholas Kessler, a longtime Helena brewer and brickmaker, bought the brickworks from Thurston and placed Bray in charge. At that time the plant operated under horse and oxen power and the bricks were molded by hand. Bray introduced steam-powered equipment, improved the kilns for firing clay products, and expanded manufacturing to include sewer pipe, tile, flower pots, and decorative brick. By 1900, the Kessler Brick and Sewer Pipe Works was one of Montana’s leading clay manufacturers. In 1905, Kessler merged with brickmaker Jacob Switzer to form the Western Clay Manufacturing Company. Bray remained as manager, brought sons Archie and Raymond into the business, and eventually came to own it. Upon his father’s death in 1931, Archie became company president. A ceramics engineer, Archie was a creative, talented man and a lover of fine art, who envisioned a pottery on the brickyard grounds. With the enthusiastic help of friends, the dream came to fruition in 1951. Although Bray died in 1953, his Foundation survived closure of Western Clay in 1960, and in 1984 it purchased the abandoned brickyard buildings and kilns. The complex, which dates from the 1890s to 1908 updated throughout the 1920s and 1930s, spans more than a century of clay manufacturing and represents three generations of kiln technology. Today the Archie Bray Foundation is an internationally acclaimed ceramic arts center, welcoming artists who come here to work, share ideas, and keep the dream.
From the NRHP plaque at the site
Western Clay Manufacturing Company
The Western Clay Manufacturing Company Historic District is comprised of the brick and tile manufacturing buildings, kilns, ancillary buildings to the manufacturing business, pottery buildings, and residences. The buildings associated with the manufacture of clay products were abandoned in 1960 when the business closed and are basically unaltered but somewhat deteriorated since that time. The residences and buildings associated with the pottery have been continuously occupied and are in good condition.
The largest buildings in the district are those associated with the manufacture of clay products. They include the tile manufacturing building, the brick manufacturing building, and the newer (mid-1950s) tunnel kiln building. The first two named were built during the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th and other than some modifications made during the 1920s and '3Os, they are close to their original condition. Changes represent the evolution of the clay manufacturing industry in Montana. These original buildings are accompanied by three generations of kiln technology.
North of the brick manufacturing building are several brick warehouses. Two of these were originally scoves kilns (built in the 1890s) and were converted to warehouses with the addition of gable roofs in about 1935.
North and east of the tile manufacturing building are five brick beehive kilns built between 1905 and 1916. They are circular at the base and with domed tops.
West of the brick manufacturing building is the third generation of kilns at the site. A 1957 gable roofed metal building houses two tunnel kilns, a drying kiln, which replaced the steam tunnels, and the firing tunnel.
On the north and south sides of the main buildings are several ancillary buildings including a wood-frame bunkhouse, a wood-frame flower pot storage shop, two hollow clay tile warehouses, a wood-frame blacksmith shop, a hollow clay tile garage, a wood-frame cookhouse, a log barn sheathed in board and batten, and a wood-frame house. The hollow clay tile structures were built in the late 1940s and early 195*s. The others were built in the 1890s.
The grounds of the manufacturing complex and the Foundation are native grasses and a few cottonwoods and Russian olive trees. The grounds of the manu- facturing complex are also strewn with piles of defective bricks and tiles. West of the Foundation and north of the tunnel kiln building is a large depres- sion in the ground lined with willow which is one the local pits from which clay for common brick was dug.
From the NRHP Nomination Form