The Medora Brick Company is a defunct brick factory located in Indiana.
History
The Medora Shale Brick Company was formally organized on July 8, 1904, with its articles of association filed on July 15 and recorded on August 2. 1 The initial board of directors included William T. Branaman, Josiah L. Hunsucker, Cornelius V. Trautman, John H. Sutton, and George W. Zollman.
The company selected a site near Medora along the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railroad line for its brick factory. Production began in 1910, 6 utilizing a nearby abundant and accessible clay supply. 1 Over time, the facility grew to include 12 domed brick kilns, long-covered storage sheds, a small office, a brick-drying building, and several ponds, as the plant required 10,000 gallons of water daily.
Initially, the factory’s bricks were primarily used for street paving. 1 This practice traced back to Mordecai Levi, who pioneered the use of brick for paving by replacing a gravel and dirt roadway on Summers Street in Charleston, West Virginia, with brick in 1870. 2 By 1873, he had paved an entire block. Bricks became a preferred material for improving roads, offering durability, better sanitation, and resilience against weather. Vitrified bricks were especially valued for their glazed surfaces, which resisted moisture and chemical damage…