This, kiln #6, is one of five beehive kilns which remain on the site of the Western Clay Manufacturing Company. The earliest were built in 1896 to replace less efficient and effective scove kilns. The latest were built about 1915. Kiln #6 is probably one of the later kilns. Unused since the brickyard's closing in 1960, this is one of the kilns which were undergoing renovation when we visited, to later be opened for viewing by the public. The operation of the kiln is described further below.
The Western Clay Manufacturing Company Historic District contains the relatively intact buildings and structures which once comprised the major brick manufacturing facility in Montana, producing brick for many of the most architecturally and historically significant buildings in Montana. As well, the complex manufactured other important clay products such as paving brick and sewer tile. The complex still houses a significant collection of late 19th and early 20th century brick and tile manufacturing machinery and apparatus.
Begun as a brick factory in Butte, MT by C.C. Thurston in the 1870s, the Butte business was moved to the Helena area in 1883, and bought in 1885 by Nicholas Kessler, a native of Luxemburg, who emigrated to the United States in 1854. Kessler had begun producing brick in another Helena brickyard in 1866. Another major Helena brick maker, Jacob Switzer, operated a brick making facility near his clay pits at Blossburg. In 1905 the Switzer and the Kessler works merged, incorporating the
Western Clay Manufacturing Company. By 1915, Western Clay had become Montana's largest clay product manufacturer.
Western Clay Manufacturing produced some of the highest quality brick in Montana. Bricks from this plant were specified by architects for some of the most prominent public buildings around the state and can be seen today in such buildings as Fort Harrison in Helena, the Federal Courthouses at Butte and Helena, the Civic Center and the First National Trust Co. in Helena, the state hospital at Galen, the campuses of state universities at Missoula, Bozeman, Butte, Havre, and Dillon, aw well as other buildings as far away as Kalispel and Billings.
Today the complex is also home to the
Archie Bray Foundation, a ceramics school which grew out of the clay products manufacturing business and which enjoys a national reputation in pottery and the ceramic arts. Though presently closed due to COVID-19, it will soon reopen to students and the public.
Beehive Kiln #6
This beehive kiln is a brick structure about 30 feet in diameter in its outside dimensLon. Its base is a brick wall about 8' tall with steel bands wrapped around it at various heights to restrain the outward thrust of the dome and with various arched openings to the inside. Two of these openings, one on each side of the kiln, are approximately 6' high and were used to load and unload the kiln. The other 10 openings are evenly spaced around the perimenter of the kiln and allowed access to the fireboxes. A brick dome rests on this perimeter wall and reaches a height of about 20'. At the center of the top of the dome is a small circular hole which allowed air into the kiln during firing and allowed the brick to be inspected during firing. Inside the kiln are a series of rectangular fire brick compartments, one adjacent to each firebox opening. These were called bag walls and served to shield the brick being fired from direct exposure to the fire. The floor of the kiln is comprised of a grate of large bricks which allowed the hot gasses in the kiln to be drawn down through the floor to the underground flue which connected the kiln to the adjacent stack. The perimeter of the kiln is surrounded by a wood frame shed roof shelter.
Beehive or downdraft kilns were developed to improve firing efficiency by drawing hot gasses from the firebox down through the mass of brick and put through a nearby stack. Coal or wood (and later natural gas) was burned in the fire boxes behind the bag walls. Hot combustion gasses rose up the sides of the kiln nnd along the dome and then were drawn down through the mass of brick and the brick floor grate by the draft induced by the stack. This process more evenly fired the brick and was an improvement over the earlier scove kilns in which many bricks were either under- or over-fired. The first downdraft kilns at the Kessler brickyard were built in 1896. It is not known whether this is one of those or if it is one of the later beehive kilns which were eventually built here, before 1916.
...because of their condition, the beehive kilns are of primary significance to the Western Clay Manufacturing Co. district.
From the NRHP Registration Form, Page 39