HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                      127

exception of the Weaver tile and pump works, the business was only
local, and in comparison with the coal business was insignificant. The
report of the department of statistics for 1886 mentioned two clay-work-
ing establishments in Clay county, the amount invested in the plants being
$1,000, the value of the annual output as $12,000, and the number of
employes, 20. Since 1890 the clay industry has become vastly larger
than the coal mining, and Brazil’s importance in the manufacturing
world is now measured in the output of its clay works. A careful esti-
mate places the amount of invested capital at from $1,200,000 to $1,500,-
000, while in wages the monthly payroll approximates $45,000, or about
half a million dollars a year. The marketed output can only be roughly
estimated, but it can be stated in reason that every day in the year a
train of about thirty-five cars, loaded with brick, sewer pipe, tile, etc.,
leaves Brazil for the markets of the middle west, and some of the cars
go to the Atlantic coast, and recently a shipment of brick went to Oregon.
    Besides the clay-manufacturing plants there are also several clay
mining companies of this vicinity, which are engaged in mining the
shales and clay and shipping the raw materials to distant points for
manufacture. The nine large day factories of the Brazil district are as
follows: The Hydraulic-Press Brick Company, the McRoy Clay Works,
the Sheridan Brick Works, a branch of the American Sewer Pipe Com-
pany, the Brazil Clay Company, the Indiana Paving Brick Company,
the Chicago Sewer Pipe Company, the Continental Clay and Mining
Company and the Weaver Clay and Coal Company.
    The Hydraulic-Press Brick Company, which is considered the largest
of the clay plants at Brazil, was formerly the Ayer-McCarel Clay Com-
pany, which was founded in 1902 and began operations in February,
1903. The original owners were J. V. Ayer, W. L. McCarel and Daniel
Reagan. The business was sold to the present company in March, 1906.
The principal officials of the present company are F. G. Middlehaupt,
president and general manager, Ralph Simpkins, vice president and
secretary, George F. Baker, treasurer, all of St. Louis, and H. A.
Walters, who is fourth vice-president and manager of the Brazil branch.
    This plant, which is located on the Meridian street road about a
mile north of Main street, is equipped with the most modern machinery
in brick manufacture. It has twelve round and four rectangular kilns.
The shale and clay is taken from a pit adjacent to the works. The
average number of employes is about 175, and the monthly payroll about
seven thousand dollars. The output is 60,000 brick per day, or 1500 cars
a year. The original company manufactured hollow block, conduits,
chimney blocks and kindred ware, but the present company makes a
specialty of “impervious vitrified face brick,” though also making in
limited quantities chimney blocks and similar ware.
    The McRoy Clay Works in 1900 purchased the site and plant of the
old Brazil Brick and Pipe Company, north of the city and just west of
the C. & E. I. Railroad. The new company reconstructed the old plant
and made extensions that placed it among the largest manufacturers of
clay products in the state. Its special products are electric conduits,
which have been used in practically all the large cities of the United
States, being shipped as far as Oregon. Hollow building blocks are also
manufactured.
    The Brazil Brick and Pipe Company was organized in June, 1890,