8941 Audubon Rd
Chanhassen, MN, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Albertine and Fred Heck House

Statement of Significance:

The Albertine and Fred Heck House meets National Register Criterion A under the Area of Significance “Industry” as a well-preserved example of a building constructed of Chaska brick and relates to the “Railroads and Agricultural Development (1870-1940)” statewide historic context. The house is significant for its association with brick manufacture in Chaska, an important local industry which produced a distinctive building material.

Chaska brick is a well-known cream-colored brick, the product of the clay used as a raw material, the amount of oxygen in the kiln, the duration of firing and the temperatures achieved. One historian, Steve Martens, a professor of architecture at North Dakota State University, believes that the visual characteristics of Chaska brick can be attributed especially to the beehive wood-fired kilns used and the resulting low oxygen environment. “No other native brick in Minnesota” writes Martens, “is so conspicuously associated with its single place of production.” * Martens describes it as “relatively soft, modular brick (1500-2000 psi).” ^ The brick is said to have consistent properties which led to its widespread use for structural backup, but its uniform cream color was desirable as well. Masons appreciated its porous nature, which drew moisture from the mortar and allowed it to quickly set, thus permitting more rapid construction.^ The aesthetic qualities of the brick were noted in the 19th century and are notable now, and the colors of the brick have been compared to the natural colors of the local autumn, while the unique hue of the brick and mortar combination makes Chaska brick farmhouses clearly distinguishable, and commonly recognized and appreciated by area residents today. Chaska brick alone was used for the town’s nineteenth century masonry buildings. In the surrounding countryside, the presence of the nearby brickyards had a similar influence, creating a collection of brick farmhouses of homogenous material and color. The proliferation of so much local brick in the area makes it a place where the color of the brick is a pronounced feature of the architectural landscape.

The extensive presence of the historic brick continues to exert an influence on, and define, the visual character of Chaska’s downtown. In the downtown, builders have continued to use cream-colored brick even though the brick is no longer locally produced; the city government has encouraged the use of cream brick for commercial construction throughout the city and has specified it for public buildings which the city government has commissioned, including the city hall/library and a community center.

The Chaska brickyards operated from c. 1857 to 1961 under the management of numerous companies and at numerous sites. Operated seasonally, from about April to November, they were a mainstay of the town’s economy. It appears that most of the foremen responsible for the manufacturing process were American born brickmakers who had learned the trade in places such as Milwaukee or the Eastern U.S. Production began when Lucius Howe, a native of Vermont, exploited a clay deposit at the east end of Chaska in 1857. The west section of a brick house still standing on lot 6, block 30 in Chaska, is thought to date from 1857, and is considered Chaska’s first brick house; the supposition derives from a requirement imposed on John Humpel by the Chaska Land Company to construct a house on the property within one year. A store at Second and Walnut streets, constructed in 1858, is thought to be Chaska’s first brick commercial building.

The clay deposits at Chaska are particularly rich, and were called “practically inexhaustible,” measuring 20 to 40 feet in thickness, and covered with till two to six feet thick. The clay was found to contain pockets of sand, but few rocks. At most of the Chaska yards, a layer of yellow clay rested upon a layer of blue clay; both were used for brickmaking, and both produced Chaska’s characteristic, cream-colored brick, but the blue clay seems to have been preferred. By 1866, four yards were operating, and local masons were making general use of the brick for homes and buildings; in 1868 the Howe yard produced 1.6 million bricks, some of which went to St. Paul and Hastings. The Chaska newspaper in 1871 boasted that “the Chaska brick command the largest price in St. Paul and elsewhere and have justly become celebrated and are equal to the Milwaukee brick.” In 1878, one yard was producing 5,000 bricks per day. Following the Minneapolis mill explosion and fires in 1878, 600,000 Chaska bricks were supplied to rebuild the Humboldt mill in Minneapolis, and another 600,000 to rebuild the Washburn mill. In nearby Carver, two and a half miles southwest of Chaska, an identical brick was produced. Brickyards there opened in the mid-1850s and operated intermittently during the nineteenth century; despite the obvious inaccuracy, the bricks produced in Carver are included under the generic term “Chaska brick.”

Chaska brick was initially transported by wagon and barge. These modes of transport largely limited its distribution to the Chaska area, and to St. Paul, to which the river route from Chaska was relatively straightforward. In 1869, for example, 80,000 bricks were used for a St. Paul hotel, probably the Ryan. After railroads reached Chaska in 1871, the brick was used in various cities and villages for commercial buildings and for sewers and other subterranean applications, where its durability was sought. Because the Chaska brickyards produced “common” brick until late in the century, much of the exported Chaska brick was used as backup behind pressed brick facades or for side and rear walls in commercial buildings. When used for utilitarian buildings such as mills, however, all the walls, including the front facade, would typically be composed of common Chaska brick. During the nineteenth century in Chaska and environs, Chaska common brick was generally used throughout a structure, and was used again for all the facades of residences, commercial, and public buildings.

Apparently due to occasional rifts between the brickmakers and the railroads over rates, barges continued to be used for more than a decade after the railroad reached Chaska; the owners of the steamboat Aunt Betsey contracted to move 800,000 bricks by barge to an unspecified place in 1878. In 1879, it was announced that the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad had agreed to run a spur to the brickyards, and that all brick “are hereafter to be shipped over that road to St. Paul and Minneapolis at a stated price.” “Twenty-five cars of brick were being shipped from Chaska daily via two railroads in 1883. In 1889, however, the Chaska brickmakers joined together to operate a fleet of barges between Chaska and St. Paul because of an “extortionate freight tariff’ of $1.50 per thousand bricks. The brickmakers hoped to save about half the transportation cost by using barges.

Unfortunately, no formal survey has been undertaken to determine the brick’s distribution in the region. While many Minnesota River towns contained brickyards, including Shakopee, Jordan, Blakeley, Henderson, Belle Plaine, New Ulm, Le Sueur, St. Peter, Mankato, and Redwood Falls, most were in use for short periods of time. Chaska’s brick production was continuous during the nineteenth century and was for a time the most prolific in the state.

In 1873, 100,000 of “the celebrated cream brick” were produced per day by 75 workers in three yards. Chaska had “come to the front” as a commercial village because of its brick industry. In 1880, when the village numbered about 2,000, the Chaska newspaper estimated (with apparently too much enthusiasm) that 600 men and boys were working in the brick-related industries, including manufacturers of brickmaking machinery such as Frank and Fred Ess who frequently advertised their “Nameless brick machine” in the newspaper. Two yards were employing “patent machines,” while a third was producing “an extra quality of brick.” A total of five brick yards in Chaska produced over 9 million bricks in 1880.'^ By 1887 much of the work was mechanized, and in one yard, a patented crusher and tempered were part of an efficient system perfected by the Bier lines. The work of excavating the clay, however, was still being performed by pick and shovel as late as 1907.

The labor conditions of the brickyards received some attention in the local press in the late 1880s. Brick yard laborers worked arduously in a dangerous environment, and their lives were not improved by perennial unemployment in winter. In 1887, The Evening Journal of Minneapolis revealed that the “Brick Baron’s grip” had firmly “tightened on the throats of Chaska’s toilers,” who were “little more than slaves.” The brick barons reportedly withheld wages, paid miserly sums, and exploited the workers through company stores. In response, the Chaska newspaper claimed that the reported conditions obtained two or three years previously; since then, wages had been raised, hours shortened to ten hours per day, and a daily production limit of 30,000 bricks prescribed. In 1890, however, when a storm and freezing weather destroyed 200,000 unburned bricks, the laborers were expected to compensate for the loss. Wages were reduced by 10c per day, causing an unfruitful two-day strike.

The brickyards of Chaska flourished in the 1890s, about the time that the Heck house is thought to have been built. A million brick were ordered for a Minneapolis building in 1892, which were supplied by more than one yard.*^ In 1896, 500,000 bricks were sold by the Klein yard for a flour mill in New Prague, while the Riedele and Strobach-Faber yards each supplied 100,000 bricks for the Dakota County poorhouse.^“ In the same year, the Strobach and Faber yard received the first premium for “firm, sound body and well burned brick of unexcelled quality” at the World’s Fair.^* In 1897, 300,000 “sewer brick” were ordered for the basement of the State Capitol in St. Paul; other Twin Cities buildings incorporating Chaska brick include the Donaldson Department Store in Minneapolis, the 1896 Scott building on 7th Street in St. Paul, the 1925 Minneapolis Auditorium, and the Northwestern National Bank built in Minneapolis in 1929.^

By 1902 production in the brickyards of Chaska had expanded considerably. With six yards employing 250 workers, the combined production of the town was reported to be about 3.5 million brick per day. A single new kiln at the Greiner and Coming yard was capable of firing six million bricks at a time. By 1910 all the brick yards had been acquired by Charles and Christian Klein, whose family entered the business as creditors following the financial recession of 1893. A description of the four Klein yards written in 1917 reveals that coal was being used to fire the kilns, and that the manufacturing process had become more mechanized, involving a steam shovel to excavate the clay, a disintegrator to process the clay and mix it with sand, a molding machine to form the bricks, and trucks to move the molded bricks into a drier. Bricks were carefully stacked in kilns by hand, and 90,000 to 500,000 bricks were burned for four to ten days, with the firing process controlled manually. The Klein brothers prospered until the 1930s, when a decline ensued, and the Chaska brick yards finally closed in 1961.^'* Three reasons for the demise of the brickyards cited by James Klein, a grandson of Christian Klein, were: changing fashion in architecture which called for a darker colored brick; the advent of alternative materials such as concrete block and tile and the decreased demand for structural or back-up brick; and a “division between laborers and management” in the 1960s which adversely affected the price of Chaska brick.^

Chaska brick was used for the construction of farmhouses from the 1850s until about 1900. The structure of these farmhouses includes brick veneer over log, brick veneer over frame, and Fachwerk (timber-framed with brick in-fill). However, the majority, including the Heck house, are constructed of brick load-bearing walls with roof and floor joists let into the masonry. Employing the practice of configuring the house as an upright and ell with the kitchen as the formal entrance and circulation element, local masons relied almost exclusively on brickyards in nearby Carver and Chaska. Increasingly grand structures were constructed as the century progressed, with Old-world influences more discernable at the end of the century than at the beginning: during the 1860s and ’70s Chaska brick farmhouses embodied a variety of architectural features that originated in houses built in the eastern U.S., while after 1870 they began to manifest features from houses traditionally built in the Rhineland of Germany.

The cost of shipping such a heavy material localized its use for house as an upright and ell with the kitchen as the formal entrance and circulation element, local masons relied almost exclusively on brickyards in nearby Carver and Chaska. Increasingly grand structures were constructed as the century progressed, with Old-world influences more discernable at the end of the century than at the beginning: during the 1860s and ’70s Chaska brick farmhouses embodied a variety of architectural features that originated in houses built in the eastern U.S., while after 1870 they began to manifest features from houses traditionally built in the Rhineland of Germany. The cost of shipping such a heavy material localized its use for house about 1900 bricks from other localities began to be used for farmhouse construction, perhaps because the cream color was no longer fashionable.

According to one source on Milwaukee architecture, cream-colored brick was popular until the late nineteenth century, but was supplanted by darker materials including brown and red brick and brownstone. Cream color, or “a light brownish yellow,” was also associated with bricks produced in London, and such bricks were reportedly preferred for house building, because “the color is more pleasing to the eye.” Minneapolis was described in 1874 as a city with business buildings “all of a most substantial character, and mostly constructed of a handsome cream brick, or of the beautiful granite which is found in the state.” In 1896 cream brick was being produced in Chaska, Carver, Jordan, Ostego, Glenwood, Fergus Falls, Moorhead, Minneapolis, Brainerd, Shingle Creek, Frankford in Mower County, Dayton, and Evansville in Douglas County.

Evidence indicates that the use of brick for homes and buildings in Southern Minnesota ensured permanence and quality to those who commissioned them. In 1855, when Laurence Oliphant visited Minnesota and published a memoir of his impressions, he mentioned the manifestations of civilization that he found there: “four or five hotels, and at least a half a dozen handsome churches, with tall spires pointing heavenward, and sundry meetinghouses, and a population of seven or eight thousand to go with them, and good streets with sidewalks, and lofty brick warehouses, and stores, and shops.”

A.J. Downing compared the construction of a house to the making of a statue and suggested that stone and brick were obviously more durable and therefore to be preferred. At Chaska, brick may have offered an advantage if farmers were able to trade cordwood for building material. Brickyards required enormous quantities of wood for firing kilns, and farmers who could cut wood on their land and haul it directly to the brickyards may have found it expedient to build with brick procured by barter.

Further, brick construction offered superior fire resistance, infrequent maintenance, and superior insulation against cold. In fact, crudely made brick was sometimes used to insulate balloon-frame houses.” An authority on building materials quantified the difference between brick and frame construction in 1879, suggesting that the average life of a brick dwelling was about 75 years, while a frame dwelling would last only fifty. During these fifty years, the siding on the average frame house would have to be replaced at thirty years, while the sills and first floor joists would be unserviceable after twenty-five. The sills and first floor joists of a brick dwelling, on the other hand, would perform for forty years.” The reported longevity is too conservative, but the comparison demonstrates that brick was acknowledged as a superior material. Disparaging the frame house for its lack of “soundness and style,” architect E.C. Gardner in 1880 predicted a future in which farmhouses would generally be built of brick or stone.

Perhaps the best evidence of the ‘value’ of brick as a symbol of stability and prosperity lies in its use for important houses and buildings in Chaska. Not only did merchants and tradesmen in the town frequently select brick for their homes and commercial buildings, but as a rule, Chaska’s nineteenth-century public and parochial schools, churches, railroad depots, and municipal buildings — many of which still survive — were built of local brick.

Brick would certainly have been familiar to German American immigrants, who came from a country where it was the dominant building material; one scholar speaks of a “basic inclination of Germans to build in brick whenever income permitted.” Familiarity with brick has been suggested as an important influence in the case of the Heck family home by one of their descendants. According to family tradition, the Heck house replaced an older house, probably frame, which stood across Audubon road from the present house.

During a survey of the houses. Martens found about 75 extant Chaska-brick farmhouses in Carver County. They are generally well-preserved, with the masonry “sound, clean and intact.” He attributed this in part to the low level of atmospheric pollutants in the area, “which has preserved most of the farmhouses from the tendency elsewhere toward abrasive cleaning.” He noted that most alterations to these structures have taken the form of wood-framed additions and stucco overlays.

The term “Chaska Brick” seems to have begun as a simple phrase describing brick produced in a particular geographic location. As the prominence of the Chaska brickyards grew, the term began to be used in ways that suggest that the brick itself had become a recognizable entity. W.B. Griswold, who had offices in the Minneapolis Lumber Exchange Building, advertised himself in 1889 as a “Chaska brick broker and general contractor.” The Greiner and Corning company, whose offices were in St. Paul’s Ryan Building, advertised in 1908 as “manufacturers of Chaska brick, hollow brick and building tile,” a phrase also used by its successor, the Chaska Brick & Tile Company in 1910. The C.H. Klein Brick Company, whose offices were in Chaska, described itself in 1908 as “manufacturers of celebrated Chaska brick and hollow brick.