Courtesy Photo | Examples of brick found at an archaeological dig at Fort McCoy, Wis., in 2014 are...... read more read more
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Archaeological researchers with Colorado State University’s Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) were investigating homestead sites in the Fort McCoy-Sparta Airport area in 2014 when they recovered three different bricks with the manufacturer’s names on them.
The first of these was from the Laclede Brick Company in St. Louis, Missouri, the next was from the Illinois Brick Company, and the last was from the Menomonie Pressed Brick Company in Wisconsin.
The Laclede Brick Company was founded in 1844 and produced brick from fire clay.
These types of bricks were especially resistant to high temperatures and were often used in the glass industry but would have been perfectly adequate for a furnace or fireplace.
The Laclede Brick Company was consolidated with the Christy Fireclay Company in 1907 to become the Laclede-Christy Clay Products Company, so the fact that the brick recovered by CEMML researchers only had Laclede, St. Louis impressed on it may indicate that the brick was manufactured prior to 1907. The Laclede-Christy Clay products company was acquired by a division of H. K. Porter, a company that was involved in the steel industry. The Illinois Brick Company began in 1900 when numerous Chicago manufacturers merged their businesses to become more profitable.
At their peak in the 1920s, the company operated 10 brickyards and produced approximately 685 million bricks a year.
The Illinois Brick Company shut down brick production operations in the 1970s to avoid complying with the Clean Air Act of 1970, which would have cost millions of dollars.
The Menomonie Pressed Brick Company was the closest neighbor to Fort McCoy of the brick manufacturers documented by the 2014 investigations. It began as the Dunn County Pressed Brick Company in 1872 but was renamed the Menomonie Pressed Brick Company in 1886.
The company operated until 1897, when it was purchased by the Hydraulic Pressed Brick Company of St. Louis and was ultimately closed in 1907. The Menomonie Brick Company, a different but similarly named company, operated into the 1960s and was the last operating brickyard in the area.
Brick was primarily used for building houses but was also used for other structures such as barns and outbuildings. Several homestead-era archaeological sites at Fort McCoy have been found with brick structures as outbuildings.
All archaeological work conducted at Fort McCoy was sponsored by the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.
Visitors and employees are reminded they should not collect artifacts on Fort McCoy or other government lands and leave the digging to the professionals.
Any individual who excavates, removes, damages, or otherwise alters or defaces any post-contact or pre-contact site, artifact, or object of antiquity on Fort McCoy is in violation of federal law.
The discovery of any archaeological artifact should be reported to the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch at 502-898-8214.
(Article prepared by Colorado State University’s Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands and the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.)
| Date Taken: | 03.19.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 03.19.2026 13:07 |
| Story ID: | 560927 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 19 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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