Embodied Energy of Locally Sourced Brick Buildings

By Pete Brown, Montana State Historic Preservation Officer

Brick construction is valued for its resilience, and historically, its presence indicated a sense of permanence and confidence in a community’s future. Consequently, nearly every sizeable city in Montana had nearby clay pits and brickworks to meet local demands.

Location of Blossburg clay pits in relation to Western Clay Manufacturing and the Placer Hotel in downtown Helena. (Google Maps)

In Helena, clay traveled fewer than 20 miles by rail from the Blossburg pits to Western Clay Manufacturing (now Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts), which delivered a finished product first by wagon then by trucks to local job sites, such as the Placer Hotel. Today’s brick is made and transported hundreds of miles from out of state.

While all brick buildings embody a significant investment of energy from clay extraction to kiln firing and transport, locally made historic brick represents a smaller carbon footprint than its imported counterpart of today. Demolition of viable historic brick buildings squanders that investment of energy and expands our carbon footprint. Preservation extends the embodied energy’s dividend and enables development within the smaller carbon footprint of a century ago.

“The greenest building is the one already built.” – Carl Elefante, former president of the American Institute of Architects.

#mtshpo #carbonneutrality #climatexculture #climateheritage #mthist #nationalregisternps

Learn more:

• Placer Hotel and Western Clay properties’ listings in the National Register of Historic Places.
• Placer Hotel at https://historicmt.org/items/show/735
• Western Clay Manufacturing / Archie Bray Foundation at https://historicmt.org/items/show/822

The locally sourced bricks used to complete Helena’s Placer Hotel in 1913 were made from clay that traveled fewer than 20 miles by rail from the Blossburg clay pits to the Western Clay Manufacturing Company. Today’s brick is made and transported hundreds of miles from out of state.

(Photo source: https://mtmemory.org/digital/collection/p267301coll3/id/6871/rec/1)

Demolition of viable historic brick buildings squanders the investment of energy and expands our carbon footprint. Preservation extends the embodied energy’s dividend and enables development within the smaller carbon footprint of a century ago.

The Western Clay Foundation was founded by Englishman C.C. Thurston, who established a brickyard in 1883 at the site that would become eventually become The Archie Bray Foundation. Archie Bray was the son of Thurston’s employee Charles Bray, and upon his father’s death in 1931, became company president. A ceramics engineer, Archie was a creative, talented man and a lover of fine art, who envisioned a pottery on the brickyard grounds. The dream came to fruition in 1951. Today the Archie Bray Foundation is an internationally acclaimed ceramic arts center, welcoming artists who come here to work, share ideas, and keep the dream alive.