This photo shows some of the workers at the Karthaus Fire Brick Plant, near the banks of Mosquito Creek. The plant closed in 1926.
Brickyards and brick-making were an essential part of the 19th and 20th century industrial output of Clearfield County.
Brickyards employed thousands of men throughout the county, only to be surpassed by coal miners.
General laborers, railroad workers, farmers and small business owners and their employees made up the bulk of the rest.
The manual labor of the time was very low tech and often much more physically demanding, compared to modern manufacturing methods.
Bricks were in great demand a century ago. They were used for buildings, street pavement in some boroughs and were shipped away to be used for liners for industrial furnaces.
Clearfield County had rich deposits of high-grade clay as well as coal for a source of high heat needed to fire the bricks.
Shown, from left to right, are:
- Harry Rubly
- Bill McKinzie
- Charley McGovern
- Charlie Meeker
- Pat Fitzgerald
- Fred Chatam
- Charlie Shultz
- Giles Shifter
- Bill Shultz
- Harry Reiter
- Roy Reiter
- Solomon Novey
- John Gross
- Ira Reiter
- George Mauer
- Official
- *** McCoullough
- Official
- Warren Kyler
- Unknown Girls
- Joe Bamat (on wagon)
