Many of the resources I have come across say that nearly every fledgling Minnesota town in the late 1800s had a brickyard. If you come across an old brick structure in the state and want to know more about it (like where the bricks came from), where do you start? Good question…. but no easy answer.
Of course, I have to put in a plug for my own web site. If you are unfamiliar with the various colors of Minnesota bricks, look here first. I have some color pictures of some of the more popular Minnesota bricks and am working on adding a larger sample (like a portion of a brick wall) picture as well. There are distinctive colors to each, but some are harder to figure out as they are close in color. As examples, the Chaska brick is a light tan while the Lake Mary brick is a shade of orange.
The internet is becoming a powerful tool for research. Yet, on the topic of old Minnesota bricks, information can be extremely limited. Since the internet is so easy to use, I would then suggest trying your favorite search engine. There is usually some general information out there about certain bricks and brickyards, and there may even be a recent online newspaper article that may help. However, since there are so many of these old buildings still around, very specific information may not exist on the internet.
Step three would be contacting the local city or county historical society. Usually you can get some information from these sources. Maybe not all the information you are looking for, but you can get a start. After these two sources, try the Minnesota State Historical Society (MNHS) in St. Paul. The MNHS holds many old Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for the state of Minnesota. If your target building was in a town that had a Sanborn Map made for it, you may be able to get some information from these maps. Sanborn Maps usually depicted a large city map made on a certain date (say July 1884), followed by more detailed maps of individual city blocks.
If you can get dates of construction or any other milestone, I then suggest digging into old newspaper microfilm. Most towns in the late 1800s had a local newspaper, and events as small as a runaway horse dashing through town were often printed in the local newspaper. If you have some target dates in mind, search the newspaper microfilm issues around those dates and see what you find. If you love history, these old newspapers will captivate you. Good Luck!
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