On 12th Street, on the site where Kroger used to be, immediately to the west of the current store, there used to be a brickyard.

I know it was there as early as the ’20s. There used to be kilns for making the bricks, and there was an associated quarry.

When did that yard open, and who did it? Was it local people or a company from out of town?

The brickyard, H.E. Buck Brick Manufacturing Co., was established in 1894 and once encompassed the lot now occupied by Kroger and the lot immediately to the west, the original site of the grocery store.

The brickworks was founded by John Buck, who owned a brick business in his hometown of Morris, Ill. He was joined in the venture by his sons William, Richard and Herbert.

After a few years, John and William returned to Illinois, leaving the business to Herbert, who, according to brickyard lore, stayed because he had lost a coin toss. Richard reportedly farmed rice for eight years and then moved back north to help William run their father’s business in Morris.

The Buck brickyard used clay dug from the ground just north of the 12th Street tracks to make its bricks, which were used to build several local buildings.

A newspaper notice from 1906 lauds the use of Buck bricks — “Lake Charles brick made from Calcasieu clay” — in the construction of the St. Louis and Watkins railroad depot, which once stood where the Safety Council of Southwest Louisiana stands today.

“Prior to the establishment of this firm, Lake Charles hardly knew what a brick building looked like,” reads an American Press story from April 4, 1940. “Brick as a building material was not used here before then. Perhaps a few chimneys and fire places, but wood for the most part was used for building.

“With the establishment of a brick yard here, however, Lake Charles soon began to build in brick and now has many fine brick public buildings, stores and homes.”

That success was doubtless due, in part, to H.E. Buck’s multitude of commonsense-appeal ads that ran in the newspaper.

“In the matter of fire prevention which is being agitated at this time, there is a lot being said on the matter of Caution, but not much about building carefully. The idea seems to be to build with any material you want to and then be very careful not to set it on fire. …,” reads an ad from the May 5, 1927, edition of the newspaper.

“You complain of the proposed increase in fire insurance rates. If you build of brick or tile your rate will be materially decreased instead of increased. These are matters worthy of your serious consideration. Yours Truly, H.E. Buck.”

A particularly interesting notice, its provenance unclear, appeared in the April 8, 1896, edition of The American, one of the newspaper’s precursors.

The article speaks of the “undoubting faith in our future” the Bucks displayed in setting up a brick and tile business “without asking assistance of any source.” And it ties the use of tile for draining gardens with prevention of mosquito-borne diseases, referring to the tile as the area’s “greatest need.”

“Experts in tile have closely examined the product of this factory and have pronounced it the equal of the best manufactured in the north. The prices are low,” it reads. “Every yard, garden, and foundation for a dwelling in the city should be drained. It is water under the houses which produces malaria.”

Halcyon days

H.E. Buck remodeled his factory in 1926. At the time, it was producing 600,000 or so bricks a week and was reportedly one of only two businesses in the state that sold building tile.

“Since there is no limit to the supply of raw material necessary for the manufacture of brick,” reads a story from September of that year, “and since the demand must increase from year to year, without any possibility of ever ceasing, Mr. Buck thinks the future gives promise for yet un-dreamed of prosperity in this line of manufacturing.”

The plant, passed on to H.C. Buck a few years later, was sold in 1945 to Price, Dunham, Fenet, which later became Dunham-Price. As the city grew around it, the brickyard became smaller and more specialized and ceased producing local bricks.

William G. Buck, a scion of the Buck family, reminisced about the brickworks — “Lake Charles’ oldest industry,” he called it — in an article that appeared in the March 20, 1957, edition of the American Press.

He recalled the hours he spent as a boy playing in the yard, an otherworldly place of “ ‘kinkeys’ and tunnels and labyrinths more wonderful than any Disneyland.”

“To this writer the old brick yard will always remain a part of that never-never land of childhood,” Buck wrote. “It was a place to jump off boxcars into sand and gravel pits, crawl through the tunnels under the kilns, and scramble around the belts and pulleys and augers in the mill. …

“Looking back on it now, it seems like rather dangerous sport for children, but then there seemed no risk involved. Then, it was just one round of ‘play-like’ adventure.”

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The Informer answers questions from readers each Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. It is researched and written by Andrew Perzo, an American Press staff writer. To ask a question, call 494-4098, press 5 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com.