#7. Brick Industry “Shapes” Alliance
Workmen removing the finished bricks and putting them on the drying cars at Alliance Clay Products. 1928. https://www.alliancememory.org/digital/collection/places/id/1033/rec/19
Brickmaking began in Alliance during the 1860s with Josiah Rosenberry who took his clay from the ponds that are now on the Glamorgan estate. As early as 1907, James Wilcox’s Alliance Clay Products Company was turning out 18,000 brick a day from a single plant at 1500 South Mahoning Avenue. By 1924, Wilcox had three plants in operation at the same location and was capable of producing 275,000 bricks a day, or about 50,000,000 a year. For about seventy years, the clay products industry was of considerable economic importance to Alliance. Production subsided during the 1950s and 1960s until Alliance Clay Products sold out to Whitacre-Greer. (Condensed from https://www.wgpaver.com/alliance-brick-industry/)