“Sky Needles” – Made in Mason City for Mason City People
March 11, 1913. The American Clay Machinery Co. Bucyrus, Ohio. Gentlemen: In reading over your edition for March 1913, I note what you say about the building of a 110 foot brick stack at Chippewa Falls, Wisc., and that it has created some comment. I do not think that there is a town in the state of its size, or I might say in this country, that has more brick chimneys than Mason City, Iowa. It might be an item of interest to know we have a trifle over thirty hollow block chimneys in Mason City, ranging from a 115 to 150 feet high. All but four of these have been put up by a local mason whose name is Joseph Maddy.
Mason City, Iowa, is the home of the largest shippers of these clay products in the world and they also believe in using their own goods. There are only two chimneys in town that are built of other material, one belonging to a local cement plant, which naturally would have used their own material to boost their trade and show their faith in it whether they believed down deep in their hearts it was the right thing or not. The other is a chimney of concrete construction at the Iowa Odd Fellows Orphans Home. This chimney was built of concrete because the brick industries of Mason City were so busy they could not furnish the proper material for a hollow block chimney at the time it was erected. Mason City Brick & Tile Co. Myron W. Stephenson. Gen. Supt. (American Clay Magazine, Bucyrus, Ohio, May 1913, Volume 7, Number 5)