BREWER, Maine — The last local remnant of an industry that helped build cities from Boston to Bangor and beyond is gone.
Brooks Brick Co., tucked along the railroad tracks that pass through Brewer’s industrial park, closed its doors Friday after 110 years in business.
“It’s a sad time,” an emotional Ernie Heins, who managed Brooks Brick for its parent company, Auburn-based Morin Brick, said Thursday. He thanked his longtime customers and employees for their support and dedication over the years.
Harrison Brooks incorporated Brooks Brick in 1906, though the brickyard likely had been operating for decades, according to David Hanna of the Brewer Historical Society. At that time, the brickmaking industry was already in decline but still busy.
Brewer’s brickyards hit their peak in the 1870s, when 18 yards were in operation, pumping out more than 11 million bricks each year, Hanna said. The bricks that came out of those brickyards were renowned for their quality and color.
“Brewer bricks were the standard of excellence throughout the construction industry,” Heins said.
Hundreds of workers toiled in fields, digging up clay, forming it into bricks, and baking those bricks until they hardened and reached the desired color. It was backbreaking work, Heins said.
“OSHA would have had a field day,” he added.
Brick companies owned huge tracts of woodland in surrounding towns, using the timber to cook the bricks, which were stacked by hand to be shipped off to building sites across the Northeast, Canada and beyond.
Brooks stopped making bricks in 1956 but remained in business selling bricks, slate, cement, mortar and other supplies produced elsewhere to masons and contractors across the region.
Morin purchased the company in the mid-1980s, according to Heins. In recent years, the Brewer operation has only had a handful of employees, who were invited to move to the Auburn location, but they’ve opted to either retire or seek other employment, he added.
It has supplied bricks and other supplies to local projects including the Cross Insurance Center, Hollywood Casino and the new Residence Inn, as well as several historic downtown Bangor properties, and much of Colby College. Some of the bricks in Brooks’ yard, which are being cleared out and trucked off site, are set aside for restoration projects at places made of matching bricks. For example, there are cream-colored bricks to match St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor.
Several factors contributed to the end of Brooks Brick, Heins said.
Today’s houses are largely built of wood. Homeowners might build an occasional decorative wall or rebuild a fireplace or chimney, but these small-scale projects aren’t large or frequent enough to support a business.
“We used to have wood stoves and fireplaces,” Heins said. “Today it’s all vents and pipes in the wall and heat pumps.”
School facilities have scaled down repairs, restoration and construction in the face of difficult budgets. In addition, Morin faces increased competition from brick suppliers in Pennsylvania, New York, Atlantic Canada, and elsewhere.
The state’s masons are getting older he said. Few young people are getting into the industry. Good brickwork is an “artform,” he said, one that requires intensive training, experience, and plenty of hard labor.
“I started seeing these trends around three years ago,” Heins said. “We’re just selling a lot smaller quantities than we ever sold.”
When Heins started working for Morin 18 years ago, Brooks was selling 5,000-10,000 bricks per day. Over the past few years, sales have dropped to a few hundred per day.
“It’s nothing like it used to be,” he said.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccrea213.