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In 1917, Alsey Brick and Tile created a company town within the town of Alsey, Illinois called "Checkertown," most of which still remains today. In addition to operating a boardinghouse, the company built housing from its own stiff mud acid brick for its workers and rented them to workers for six dollars a month. During later years, these homes were sold to individuals or plant employees, with the last one sold in 1971. In 1918, the twelve beehive kilns were converted from wood to the coal mined by Alsey Brick and Tile's mining operation. Over the next few years the plant facilities were enlarged and improved; in 1927 a large wooden storage shed was added. In 1928 a dry press was added, allowing the manufacture of Intermediate and High Duty brick to be added to the line of stiff mud products.
Alsey's first laboratory testing took place in 1930 and production continued steadily in spite of the Depression. During World War II, Alsey Brick and Tile manufactured circle brick to line "Warm Morning" stoves which were used to heat U.S. Army barracks.
Mechanization came to Alsey in the postwar years. In 1948, electric motors replaced steam boilers to power the plant's machines, and the forklift enabled the palletizing of brick. Brick was previously hauled in wheelbarrows and loaded onto trucks and into rail cars by hand with straw packing between them for protection against breakage.
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