Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson
No, Arcadia Block isn't likely the first although it may have acquired that title by default, the actual first being lost to history. Morrow Mayo noted a brick building or home had been started in 1850, he uses this as a starting place for another story altogether but I think these were local bricks. But the real changeover probably dates from the arrival of the three Simons brothers in 1880. Whitewashed Adobe has a lengthy thread concerning the Simons brothers specifically and brick versus adobe generally. I can't attribute this but in my memory (not always good) I seem to remember a Garcia kiln on the banks of the Los angeles River and quite early, maybe 1850-60. I'll have to look around for it.
|
Got it:
http://calbricks.netfirms.com/brick.hunter.html. Thanks.
"In 1852, Captain Jesse Divine Hunter located at the corner of Broadway and Second streets in Los Angeles, California, and fired the first clay-fired bricks in Los Angeles. These bricks were used in the first brick building erected in town at the corner of Main and Third streets...
...There is no description of Hunter's brickyard at Broadway and Second streets in Los Angeles. He probably used surficial material on the property to make bricks, which were fired in field kilns using wood as fuel. The bricks were smaller and thinner than standard size. Because they were underfired, they spalled and eroded easily. These bricks were used locally in the Los Angeles area, and probably all of the first brick structures in town came from Hunter's kilns. Aside from the first brick house at Main and Third streets in Los Angeles, it is likely that Hunter provided bricks for the first brick jail house and, in 1854, the first brick school house, which stood on the northwest corner of Second and Spring streets."
(the rest is at the link)
Not quite early enough for Lugo House, but the problem with spalling would have been a reason to paint the Lugo residence.
The Downey residence's original wing, on Main between 3rd and 4th may be the first brick building in LA
See also:
http://calbricks.netfirms.com/brick.mullallybm.html Pioneer Brick, estb 1854 (Joseph Mullally, Daniel Porter and Samuel Ayers)
"In 1855, Mullally, Porter and Ayers built the first flour mill in town for Abel Stearns and Jonathan Scott, known as the Eagle Mills."