Looking around Shakopee, you see many buildings made of an iconic reddish brick. These structures were made from bricks manufactured at Schroeder Brickyard. The Schroeder Brick and Lime Manufacturing Company was founded in 1876 by Herman Schroeder, a German immigrant. The business stayed in the family until it ceased operation in 1941. Shakopee and neighboring communities were adding buildings rapidly in the late 1800s. This coupled with the fact that shipping heavy brick was a costly endeavor guaranteed a steady demand for locally made bricks.
Canvas advertisement for Schroeder Brick Manufacturing. From the SCHS collections.
The Schroeder Brickyard was located just east of downtown Shakopee along the Minnesota River. The location possessed all the components needed for a successful brick-making operation- a large accessible supply of high quality clay, wood to fuel the kilns and steam engines, a willing workforce, and close proximity to a growing community.
Brick-making was an outdoor activity, and was limited to warmer months of the year. When the temperature dropped below freezing, the bricks could not dry properly before firing. During the icy winters the workers at the brickyard were forced to find other employment, or were left without work during the hardest time of the year. Production at Schroeder Brickyard was labor intensive. Bricks were created using a five step process, and a mixture of human, equine and steam power.
Workers at Becker Brickworks in Belle Plaine, 1895. Photo from the SCHS collections.
1) Mining (Winning) the Clay
Workers excavated clay using shovels, buckets and a horse-drawn scraper. Large clay and sand deposits were essential for an successful brickyard. The clay and sands of the Minnesota River Valley were deposited here over 10,000 years ago during glaciation of the region. During glacial runoff, the heavy clay was left behind in depressions called kettle holes.
2) Preparation of the Clay
Sometimes the clay was “weathered” or aged for a year before it was used. The seasonal process of freezing and thawing helped break up the clay, and rain washed salt and other impurities from the clay. After the weathering process, the clay was mixed with sand and water in a large circular open pit using a huge horse-driven wheel. The type of clay found in the area determined the color of the brick.
3) Molding of the Bricks
Bricks were traditionally formed by hand by packing clay into wooden molds. By the 1870, brick-making machines had become more common. The machine used by the Schroeder Brickyard at its opening used steam to pack brick molds with tempered clay.
Photo of a Shakopee Brick, taken 1967. Photo from the SCHS collections.
This technology increased production from one to eighty bricks per minute. About one out of every 100 bricks that came from Schroeder Brickyard was stamped with the iconic “Shakopee”.
4) Drying the Bricks
After the bricks were formed, they were stacked under roofed, open drying sheds for one to two weeks. Proper drying was needed to ensure a uniform shape and strength. There were ten rows of sheds on the Schroeder site able to hold approximately 100,000 bricks. The structure of the sheds provided both air circulation and rain protection.
Ruins of a kiln, possibly for lime, at Schroeder Brickworks taken in 1967. Photo from the SCHS collections.
5) Firing the Bricks
A simple roofed updraft kiln was used to fire the bricks. Freshly dried bricks were carefully stacked in the kiln so that small perpendicular tunnels ran through the rows of bricks. Fires were then set in these tunnel openings, curing the bricks as heat rose up through the stacks. Temperatures between 1600 degrees and 2000 degrees Fahrenheit needed to be maintained for seven to ten days to properly fire the bricks. Constantly tending the fires that heated these kilns was a tedious job.
Today, we have a variety of bricks from the Schroeder brickyards, and other brick factories around the county in the SCHS collections. The processes and labor of brick making has changed throughout the years, but you can still see thousands of the iconic red Schroeder bricks making up the walls of Shakopee buildings.
Written by Rose James, SCHS Program Manager