Chaska has been getting more and more absorbed into the Twin Cities metropolitan area every year. People rarely think of the Minnesota River these days, other than the news it makes for occasional flooding. However, in the early days of Chaska, the Minnesota River was its lifeline. Supplies and people traveled in steamboats up and…
With the Minnesota River high for much of the fall 2018, flooding is expected again this spring. Flooding was a constant problem for the early Chaska brickyards, because they were initially located in a low lying area close to the river. These first brickyards were located where the current Carver County Courthouse was built. The…
John W. Gregg was one of the first brick manufacturers in Chaska, Minnesota. However, what else do you know about him? When I first started researching the early brick manufacturers of Chaska, Minnesota, I could not find out what happened to him in later life. I was extremely disappointed to be lacking that information since…
I recently came across a reference that Chaska brick were to be used in several new forts near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Powder rivers, in eastern Montana. Here is the reference, which is from the Minneapolis Tribune of August 9, 1876: “Some time since it was generally known throughout this section of the…
The Chaska brickyards produced millions and millions of brick over the years. Where did it all go? As far as I know, exact records were never kept by the brickmakers. We are therefore dependent on other record keepers for this information. Ultimately, it comes down to what can be found in old newspapers. I have…
Transportation was vitally important to the brick makers of Chaska. Their brick was shipped by steamboat and barges to the Twin Cities, where it found a ready market. When the railroads arrived, they became the primary method of shipping brick to the Twin Cities and other markets. The engineers who constructed these railroads had a…
Did you know that Chaska had an exclusive brick train in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s? There were 5 to 10 brickyards running in Chaska during this time, each producing thousands of cream colored brick. Each brickyard usually had its own railroad spur, so brick could be loaded onto railroad cars right from where…
I often comment to my spouse, “If people from over 100 years ago were transported to today, I wonder what they would think of …” This usually involves fashion trends, politics, or how people behave. However, if you apply this concept to the people who worked in the Chaska brick industry, what do you think…
I have had a few questions recently about how to obtain Chaska bricks, so I will use this post to talk about that. First off, the Chaska and Carver brickyards have long since closed, so they are no longer making the nice cream colored bricks anymore. I have experimented with making small paperweight-sized bricks, but…
Back in the late 1980’s, I drove down Flying Cloud Drive from Eden Prairie to Chaska. This route had some fantastic views of the Minnesota River Valley, as well as a mix of the old and new. There were junkyards and new developments, golf courses and landscape businesses, all along a well-traveled and beat up…