A Tale of Two Brick Plants

October 12, 2023

This article was done in partnership with the Whitemouth Municiapal Museum and the Lac du Bonnet & District Historical Society. It appeared in the October 12, 2023 edition of the Lac du Bonnet Clipper.

In April 1899, shortly after Walter Wardrop hauled Lac du Bonnet’s brick making machinery from Whitemouth, samples of brick and tile displayed in the window of the MacPherson Fruit Company on Winnipeg’s Main Street gathered significant interest. Experts considered the Lac du Bonnet clay products “equal to anything of the kind in the world” and the best “ever seen in this city.”

By August, Lac du Bonnet bricks were in demand. Throughout the summer of 1899, the plant produced and stockpiled 50,000 bricks per day. In 1900, the plant produced “over a million bricks,” all stored until the rail line arrived in 1901.

There were two layers of post-glacial clay along the Winnipeg River at Lac du Bonnet: the upper layer of yellow clay produced a cream coloured brick, while the lower layer of stiff, black clay made a dense, red brick. By 1905, the clay pits were excavated to a depth of twenty feet, with an estimated thirty feet remaining. In 1911, plant manager, William Wellman, promised a year of “record business” for Lac du Bonnet bricks.

Hoping to capitalize on Lac du Bonnet’s success, around 1914, John Wardrop (Walter Wardrop’s eldest son) partnered with well-known St. Boniface brickmaker, Albert N. McCutcheon, to establish a brick plant at Whitemouth, a half mile west of town on the main CPR line. The clay bed extended for about 200 acres, and consisted of six feet of clay that produced grey bricks and eight feet of red brick clay. By 1916, the partnership ended and McCutcheon continued alone. In 1918, the feuding former business partners took their dispute to court, with Wardrop and McCutcheon each blaming the other for incidents at the brick plant. The outcome of the case is unknown.

In 1919, the Lac du Bonnet brickyard used a steam engine to power the manufacturing process, and employed fifty men. Late that year, McArthur put the brick plant up for sale alongside the rest of his Lac du Bonnet assets.

In March 1920, a “first class brick manufacturing property” was for sale at Whitemouth. A couple weeks later, John Wardrop (owner of the John Wardrop Brick and Tile Company) wanted to purchase brick making machinery. It is unclear if John’s restart attempt was successful.

The dates of ownership during this period are vague. Sometime after 1921, the Lac du Bonnet brick plant machinery was moved to Whitemouth, where Walter Wardrop and his sons, Dave and Walter, Jr., established a brick manufacturing business.

By April 1924, the Whitemouth brickyard was for sale again. McCutcheon bought it, though it is unclear if he brought the plant into production. In August 1928, the “old brickyard” was a collection point for Seven Sisters railway construction materials. In 1930, McCutcheon sold the brickyard to Dave Wardrop.

The brickmaking process that was used for twenty years at Lac du Bonnet, continued at Whitemouth. Clay was harvested by men with shovels, and loaded into carts that were brought up to the plant, where it was dumped into a large hopper. Rollers eliminated any lumps, before the clay was mixed with water to the correct consistency and pressed into moulds. The formed bricks were air dried for three to seven days, then hauled to the kiln shed where heat and smoke cured each brick over a period of ten days and nights. Bricks were made in summer and shipped out to customers throughout the winter.

In 1933, Whitemouth was one of just three brick plants in Manitoba. Throughout the Depression, the brickyard employed local men, “keeping them off welfare lists,” though the business was “never profitable” for the Wardrops. By 1945, Dave sold out to the Alsip Brick and Tile Company, Manitoba’s largest (and now only) brick manufacturing company.

At its peak in the late 1940s, early 1950s, the Whitemouth brick plant had 52 (mostly local) employees and produced between 1.25 and 1.5 million bricks every summer.

By the mid-1950s, demand for bricks declined and the industry moved towards the cheaper and easier to produce concrete block. Whitemouth’s last bricks were made in 1957. A year later, the brickyard and buildings were dismantled and the machinery moved to Alsip’s Winnipeg yards on Nairn Ave., ending the Lac du Bonnet brick plant’s sixty year legacy.

References:

“A Promising District.” Winnipeg Tribune, April 18, 1899.

“Brick Making.” Winnipeg Tribune, June 1, 1899.

“Already a Demand.” Winnipeg Tribune, August 3, 1899.

“The brick kilns…” Winnipeg Tribune, October 23, 1900.

“Description of Lac du Bonnet.” Winnipeg Tribune, July 19, 1901.

“Lac du Bonnet Plant to Resume Operations.” Manitoba Free Press, April 7, 1911.

J. Walter Wells, Preliminary Report on the Industrial Value of the Clays and Shales of Manitoba (Ottawa, Ontario: Department of Interior, Mines Branch, 1905), 20, 32, 35, 39.
https://ftp.maps.canada.ca/pub/nrcan_rncan/publications/STPublications_PublicationsST/21/21464/cmb_008.pdf

Gordon Goldsborough, Memorable Manitobans: Albert N. McCutcheon, Manitoba Historical Society. https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/mccutcheon_an.shtml

“Makes Serious Charge Against Former Partner.” Manitoba Free Press, October 25, 1918.

“Separated Partners Enter $5,000 Action.” Winnipeg Tribune, October 25, 1918.

“Dull Day in Law Courts.” Manitoba Free Press, November 12, 1918.

Aileen Oder, ed., Logs and Lines from the Winnipeg River: A History of the Lac du Bonnet Area (Steinbach, MB: Derksen Printers, 1980), 164.

Hugh Henry, Manitoba Brickmakers (Winnipeg, Manitoba: for Museum of Man and Nature, 1992), 16, 37.
http://www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Manitoba-Brickmakers1_-copy.pdf

Bob Porth and Craig Mackenzie, eds., Trails to Rails to Highways (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Total Printing and Reproduction Service, 1979), 98-102, 226, 228.

“Lots for Sale Kent Realty Investment Co.” Winnipeg Tribune, March 2, 1920.

“Wanted, A Fully equipped brick plant…” Brandon Daily Sun, March 17, 1920.

“Whitemouth Farmer Meets with Serious Accident.” Manitoba Free Press, December 2, 1920.

“For Sale, New Canadians Colonization Co.” Winnipeg Tribune, April 12, 1924.

“Brick and Tile Industry’s Expansion Remarkable Feature.” Manitoba Free Press, August 21, 1926.

“Material is All Ready for Line to Seven Sisters Site.” Winnipeg Tribune, August 7, 1928.

The Clay and Clay Products Industry in Canada 1933 (Ottawa, Ontario: Department of Trade and Commerce), 7. https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/statcan/44-206/CS44-206-1933-eng.pdf