Follow the Yellow Bricks.

During the mid-nineteenth century, residents of Western Michigan discovered clay and shale deposits containing compounds needed to manufacture the cream-colored brick that had suddenly caught on as a fashionable building material throughout the country. The locally produced "yellow" brick was soon embraced as a stylish alternative to common red brick and contributed to the building of some of the finest homes and institutions in the state--many of which still stand today.

The manufacturing of clay products is one of Michigan's oldest mineral industries. In the earliest days, it was impossible to transport the raw material long distances, so brick was made at the edge of a clay or shale deposit. Every small settlement had a seasonally operated brick kiln. When the deposit was exhausted, the kiln was either abandoned or moved to another location.

So why are some brick the color of cream? The carbonate of lime acts as an unintentional coloring agent when it occurs naturally in clay. Common red brick looks rusty red because of the presence of iron oxide. But, when lime unites with iron--and when there is at least three times as much lime as iron--the lime counteracts, or bleaches, the red color when fired in a kiln. The result is a brick that has a pale, buff, white, yellow, blond, lemony, ocher, or cream color.

Most of Michigan's brickyards that once produced cream-colored bricks have faded into obscurity, but a few stand out because of the fame of the beautiful structures they helped to create.

Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane: Traverse City

Perhaps the most widely known collection of yellow-brick buildings on the west side of Michigan is the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, later renamed the Traverse City State Hospital. It continues to stand as a creamy landmark in Traverse City.

In 1864, Albert Norris, the founding father of Greilickville--then known modestly as Norristown--bought 40 acres near Cedar Lake and made yellow brick from the sediment clay with a small kiln on the lakeshore. Reports of his annual production are unreliable, ranging from 10,000 to 200,000 bricks, but whatever the number, it was enough to capture the interest of brick maker James W. Markham of Ontario, Canada.

Upon the advice of Traverse City founder Perry Hannah, Markham purchased Norris' brickyard in 1874. The first year, he sold a mere 5,000 bricks and considered moving on. But Hannah advised Markham and his wife to be patient and stay. Hannah was right. Soon, brick structures began replacing wooden-frame buildings in Traverse City.

Markham's biggest project began with the groundbreaking of the first building of the massive asylum complex in 1882. According to the state of Michigan's 1884 annual report, the contract to provide "fine quality, light colored pressed bricks" at a bid of $6 per 1,000 bricks was awarded to contractors Farr, Avery & Co. of Detroit and Grand Rapids, to be manufactured by the J.W. Markham Brickyard. Not long afterward, the contractor's name disappeared from the records and Markham was working directly with the asylum.

The asylum expanded to more than a dozen large buildings. In 1904, the Record-Eagle reported, "The plant is in full operation and unable to keep up with orders."

The sprawling campus is now The Village at Grand Traverse Commons, an ongoing renovation/restoration project, with many of the yellow-brick Victorian Italianate-style buildings redesigned for shopping, dining, and residential living. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1985. Tours are frequently offered.

Other examples of yellow-brick buildings are plentiful in Traverse City. The Hannah & Lay Mercantile department store was built downtown along Front Street in 1883 using 1.8 million pale bricks. It now houses several modern shops and offices. The Big Daylight Candy Factory (Straub Bros. & Amiotte Candy Company) was built in 1900 on the corner of East Front and Hall Streets.

Ladies' Literary Club: Grand Rapids

Due to plentiful deposits of clay and shale in Grand Rapids, the list of early brick makers in the city is lengthy. The first brick maker on record was John Davis in 1834, who handmade brick in the area of what is now Oakes Street. Two years later, Solomon Withey set up a small kiln on a clay pit near Ionia and Coldbrook Streets. Unfortunately, his clay contained too much limestone--when the first chimney built from his bricks was drenched in a heavy rainstorm, the bricks were discovered the next morning in a heap in the cellar. Withey's son, Orson (also spelled Orison), located a better quality of clay at the age of 17 and spent his life as a brick maker. Simeon Baldwin ran a "successful and profitable brickyard at the Forks of the Road where the aristocratic Lake Dr. and Fulton Street now meet" in 1854, and the Eureka Brick Association was organized about 1902 at the corner of South Market and Rathbone Place.

But, despite the abundance of clay, the city still lacked brick. How many of those brickyards produced yellow brick is unknown, but it is specifically mentioned at the Collins Brick Plant, which ran in conjunction with, but independently of, the Grand Rapids' Consolidated Brick & Tile Company. It was purchased by the Zeeland Brick Company in 1903 and reorganized as the Valley City Brick Company between Fulton and Fountain Streets. The company was bought out again in 1909 and ran as the New Brick Company of Grand Rapids at Michigan Avenue and Fuller Street. The Brick and Clay Record of 1910 reported that the clay bank covered about 30 acres and was "very tough and hard to handle."

One fine example of local white brick is the Ladies' Literary Club on Sheldon Boulevard, one of the first buildings in Michigan constructed by a women's organization. The club began a dozen years prior with a meeting of six ladies and grew to a membership of 300 by the time the new building was dedicated in December 1887. The facade of the two-story building was made with local white brick with Ohio bluestone trim and designed by architect William G. Robinson in the Richardsonian Romanesque style.

Also not to be missed is the Meyer May House on Madison Avenue SE, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Built in 1906 for the founder of Mays department stores, the Prairie-style structure of yellow brick features a Spanish tile roof, built-in planters, leaded-glass windows, and classic Wright details. After decades of neglect, it was completely restored in 1985 and is open for tours.

Elk Rapid's First Methodist Episcopal Church: Elk Rapids

During the nineteenth century, there were several local brick makers in Elk Rapids due to the region's sizeable clay deposits. In 1868, the firm Dexter & Nobel managed a brickyard that produced yellow brick in Elk Rapids. A geology report dated 1859 stated, "It is a mistake to suppose the clay of the region is not adapted to brickmaking. In Elk Rapids, 100,000 bricks of Milwaukee color were made, and all were good, except a few made from material taken near the surface of the bed." The Traverse Region, Historical and Descriptive also reported that Civil War veteran James I. Follett and his son James S. Follett moved to Whitewater Township in 1871 and managed a brickyard for six years at the south end of Elk Lake. Later, a venture of Smith & Holmes produced brick between 1899 and 1901.

One beautiful example of local yellow brick is the former Elk Rapids First Methodist Episcopal Church on Traverse Street. After the original wooden church was destroyed by fire, members rebuilt with brick. In a personal history by church member Bess Wright Hoare, she explained how the brick was made at a brickyard located on her parents' farm and her husband was one of the many youths who helped the masons. The church was completed in 1902 and praised for its golden, Gothic-inspired appearance and stained-glass windows. Years later, it became the Elk Rapids United Methodist Church. In 2011, the building was donated to the Elk Rapids Area Historical Society for preservation as a historic landmark.

Visitors to Elk Rapids will also notice a row of yellow-brick commercial buildings on the north side of River Street, between Cedar and Bridge Streets, which were built in 1900 and 1901. Nearby is the Elk Rapids Township Hall, built in 1883.

General Store and Masonic Lodge; Pentwater

In 1855, Charles B. Mears beat the rush of lumber barons to Western Michigan and purchased more than 40,000 acres of land, establishing a sawmill on Pentwater Lake. He also succeeded in a massive project to dig a direct channel through the dunes from Pentwater Lake to Lake Michigan. As early as 1862, Elihu B. Burrington was making brick at a clay pit on the bank of Pentwater Lake. A dozen years later, Frank O. Gardner successfully worked an "inexhaustible bed of clay of excellent quality" in the same vicinity. As Mears expanded his business ventures into construction, he saw the potential of the sediment clay deposit that stretched almost a mile along the north bank of the lake. With the backing of Chicago investors, he opened the Middlesex Brick & Tile Co. in 1883.

Things did not start out smoothly. The first season, the company dried the brick using artificial heat by a system that kept the clay moving from the time it was dug until it reached the kiln. The rapid curing was utterly unsuccessful. The next season, the company planned to try natural drying, but that spring the brickyard was destroyed by fire.

Undeterred, Mears rebuilt. Over the next few years, the company tested and developed different manufacturing techniques, and by 1890, it was shipping the "finest blond, common brick ever made" as far as Chicago. The company employed 80 to 100 hands each summer season.

Today, a drive through Pentwater showcases several structures made with that fine blond brick, including the three-story building that originally housed Mears' general store and the Oceana Masonic Lodge No. 200 on Hancock Street.

Yellow-Brick Road: Holland and Zeeland

One of the largest and most well-known brickyards in Michigan was Veneklasen Brick Company, renamed Zeeland Brick Company in 1892.

Jan Veneklasen, of Overijssel, Netherlands, immigrated with his wife, Aaltje, to Holland, Michigan, in 1847 and began farming. Their 19-year-old son, Barend, went to work in Allegan for a brick maker. The following year, Barend returned and the family began making brick near a clay pit on the north side of present-day 16th Street. The Clay Record reports their only tools were "one wheelbarrow, two moulds and a two-horse-powered hedgehog." The brick was deep red in color.

The company exhausted one clay pit after another in the area, including Hamilton, Cloverdale, and Rudyard. In 1872, a new source of clay--about 15 feet deep with a stratum of lime pebbles near the top--was found at the bottom of a hill on the west side of Zeeland. That clay produced a brilliant white brick that, when combined with brick of other colors in almost quilt-like patterns, created a signature style for Veneklasen.

Inspired by the Netherlands' design, polychromatic brick patterns became popular in U.S. Dutch settlements during the mid- to late 1800s. By artistically combining white, red, brown, and orange brick, decorative patterns were woven under roof eaves, on gable ends, and around windows and doors. Common patterns included diamond shapes, herringbone, zigzags, and inverted pyramids. The Veneklasen family built their own homes in that style, which showcased the technique to the public. Yet only the wealthy could afford a brick home. In 1867,1,000 bricks cost $6--the equivalent of a week's wages for the average Hollander.

When the company purchased an indoor drying system, the Iron Clad Dryer, in 1878, the notoriously short Michigan summers no longer affected production. The Veneklasens moved their operation to Zeeland, and by the time they reincorporated under the name Zeeland Brick Company in 1892, they were running four of the machines. Three years later, the company announced that "frost and cold weather are not considered as seven Iron Clad Dryers turns winter into summer," and annual production soared to 40 million bricks.

One beautifully restored example of a polychromatic brick structure is the New Groningen Schoolhouse on Paw Paw Drive in Zeeland. Built in 1881 of mostly white brick, a contrasting orange brick creates diamond patterns along the eaves and arches over the doors and windows. The Zeeland Historical Society purchased it in 2006 and began restoration efforts by removing layers of paint from the original brick, repairing the mortar, and replacing the original 500-pound school bell in the tower. The building now serves as a community and education center.

Other local brick examples in the area include the Old City Hall and Firehouse on Eighth Street in Holland, made a State Historical Site in 1993, and the DePree Chemical Building, now the Lumir Building, on Central Avenue in Holland.

Preserving Michigan's Yellow Bricks

As the decades went by, cream-colored bricks did not remain bright. More porous than common red brick, the pale brick absorbed black coal soot and pollutants from industrial-era skies. The yellow brick turned grimy, and city skylines darkened. Sandblasting was not the answer because it damaged the brick. Many cream-brick buildings were demolished while still in their prime in the name of beautification. But, today, restoration experts have found an effective combination of chemical treatments and pressure washing that, while expensive, restores aging cream brick to its original bright appearance.

As communities grow to appreciate the beauty of cream brick, the unique geological landscape, the efforts of early brick makers, and the artistry of construction that gave them form, more of Michigan's golden historic structures can be preserved.

by Deb Perry

Deb Perry is a Michigan photographer who owns Deb Perry Studio: Photography & Graphic Arts in Traverse City. She loves to travel throughout Michigan.

Caption: (Photo courtesy of Deb Perry Studio.)

Caption: The Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, now known as The Village at Grand Traverse Commons, in Traverse City. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Andrew Jameson.)

Caption: The Ladies' Literary Club in Grand Rapids. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Andrew Jameson.)

Caption: The former Elk Rapids First Methodist Episcopal Church in Elk Rapids. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/rossograph.)

Caption: The Elk Rapids Township Hall in Elk Rapids. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/rossograph.)

Caption: The New Groningen Schoolhouse in Zeeland. (Photo courtesy of the Zeeland Historical Society.)

Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.

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Title Annotation:	brick buildings
Author:	Perry, Deb
Publication:	Michigan History Magazine
Geographic Code:	1U3MI
Date:	Mar 1, 2018
Words:	2418
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Topics:	Brick houses Appreciation Design and construction Bricks Appreciation