Nelsonville Brick Park

The Nelsonville Brick Park was created in 1980 to help preserve what remains of two down-draft brick kilns. This property was built in 1880 as an expansion of the first brick plant in Nelsonville constructed in 1877. Whether or not they are visible to the eye, the whole area is paved with either Nelsonville blocks or the decoratively designed star pavers. It is hard to image that this small park was one of at least a dozen in the area that produced thousands of bricks a year for both local and widely regional building projects.

In 1814, Daniel Nelson of Massachusetts purchased 200 acres of land in York township, four years later he laid out 57 lots in what would become Nelsonville. When George Cortauld (the founder of the neighboring town English Town) died in 1825, Nelson relocated the post office to Nelsonville and from there Nelsonville grew. 

Since early development of Nelsonville, it was clear that there was an abundance of natural resources in the valley. Early citizens are even reported to have gotten surface coal from their own back yards and basements. One of the town's first businessmen, Lorenzo D. Poston, was instrumental in the early development of the coal industry in the area. In his early years he owned a general store in Nelsonville, and when the canal arrived by the late 1830s, he “expanded his business to include the mining and shipping of coal. He would become the first of the Hocking Valley coal barons” (Meyers, David, et al. 22). 

The Hocking Valley railroad reached Nelsonville in 1869, enabling producers to transport more than 4 times the amount of coal they were able to with the canal (250,000 tons of coal), and thus Nelsonville quickly became the hub of the little cities’ of Black diamonds towns. In 1883 many coal companies in Hocking Valley merged to form the Columbus and Hocking coal and iron company, known as the syndicate. This allowed for the company to lower wages to workers and led to a strike the following year that lasted almost eight months. Strikes like this in the region ultimately led to the formation of the United Mine Workers of America (Our Town).

Another industrialist in early Nelsonville history was Samuel Newton Poston who “came to be a leading figure in the Hocking Valley coal industry for three decades." He really put the coal industry on a larger regional and national map. In particular, one of his businesses included the Nelsonville electric company which then became the Hocking Power company. Notably, he took part in the burgeoning brick and clay industry that would come to define the region.

This involvement in the brick and clay industry would prove to be a lucrative one, particularly as the coal industry began to decline. After 50 plus years of economic boom in the hocking valley, the coal mines were slowly replaced (in a sense) by the newer and more mechanized mines in West Virginia and Kentucky (Our Town). So while the brick plants had been in use for a couple decades already, the production exponentially amped up after the mines lost some of their economic significance. This increase in brick production was also the result of a now available labor force, and an established an readily accessible means of transportation. In this way, and economically speaking, the brick industry effectively helped save the wider Nelsonville community.

What is left of the Nelsonville brick plant, only about two or three beehive kilns, is merely a fraction of what would have inhabited the valley in its hay-day. Bricks produced in these kilns would have been fired with salt glaze and had the company names imprinted on them. Their design enabled them to be both visually pleasing and incredibly functional. The lettering on the side of the brick allowed for the ideal amount of spacing when paved and it also acted as the perfect advertising tool. The Nelsonville brick plant produced Nelsonville blocks along with more ornamental pavers that included decorative designs of stars, circles, and squares. These ornamental bricks can still be seen in various locations around Nelsonville (in the sidewalks of the town square) and Athens.

Overall, the brick industry did very well up until the 1930s when newer and cheaper means of paving roads (with cement) gained popularity.

Our Town: Nelsonville. WOUB documentary. 2016.

Meyers, David, et al. Carrying Coal to Columbus: Mining in The Hocking Valley. History Press, 2017.