Hebron Brick and Block Supply (Hebron Brick Company)

Brick is one of the state’s few durable indigenous building products. Hebron has been the center of regional brick production since 1904, when this factory was constructed. Bricks produced in communities such as Fargo, Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Denbigh, and Dickinson were distributed by rail to other parts of the state. But none of those brickyard sites had the lasting influence of the Hebron operations, which continues today. During the early years, clay was dug by hand and hauled by horse and wagon. In contrast to the beehive-shaped intermittent kilns used at early brickplants like Chaska, Minnesota, twelve continuous kilns were constructed in Hebron as early as 1914, when they produced nearly five million bricks. Capacity grew to thirteen million by 1916. In 1923 the company moved its corporate offices to Fargo. Production at the Hebron site continued to grow through the 1930s, using natural gas as a firing fuel. When the state capitol (BL1.1) was under construction in 1933, the Hebron Brick Company was concerned about their capacity to supply the needed quantity of brick for that project, prompting the architects to substitute Indiana limestone for the capitol’s cladding. In 2005, a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot-long tunnel kiln extension increased annual production to forty-two million units. For more than a century, the Hebron Brick Company has continued as one of North Dakota’s most important contributors to architecture, as well as being an economic engine for the community of Hebron.