SERGEANT BLUFF, Iowa - Sioux City Brick and Tile is continuing a tradition of providing high quality brick that began more than a century ago.
Brick has been manufactured in the Sergeant Bluff area since 1856 when T. Elwood Clark had a facility in approximately the same location as the current Sioux City Brick plant.
The company can trace its roots back to the early part of the 20th century when it was created in 1913 as a merger of seven area plants, including one in Sergeant Bluff. At the turn of the last century, Iowa had 293 active brick plants. Today there are only three brick plants in the state and Sioux City Brick and Tile operates two of those.
In 1958, Sioux City Brick and Tile expanded the Sergeant Bluff operation and purchased a plant in Adel. Then in 1997 the company replaced the aging facilities in Sergeant Bluff. In 2000 , it did a similar update to the Adel plant. The new ultra modern facilities have been nationally recognized for producing high quality architectural brick with natural iron-spot colors.
People are also reading…
Norman Mahoney, CEO of Sioux City Brick and Tile, said the company is family owned and run.
"I'm the fourth generation," Mahoney said, "and I have a son in the business who's the fifth generation. Our board of directors is composed mostly of family members. We have one non-family member but he's related through marriage."
He said the Sergeant Bluff area offers a good source for clay.
"The raw material there is a unique fire clay that's very plastic," Mahoney said. "And there's a good size deposit there."
The process used to make bricks from the clay gives it a distinctive appearance.
"The way we burn it gives it a distinctive iron-spot look," he said.
Iron-spot refers to flecks of iron color blended in the red brick. The iron-spot look of the brick is a common sight in many buildings in Siouxland, Mahoney said.
"Around here its been seen forever but in some parts of the world it's a little more special and rare. We fire it in a traditional oxygen-rich atmosphere and then we fire it in a carbon-rich atmosphere then it turns to the iron-spot color," he said.
Several buildings in Siouxland have brick from the plant in Sergeant Bluff including one landmark in town, the Methodist Church built in 1880 which now houses the Sergeant Bluff Museum.
Color is of prime importance to a brick manufacturer, Mahoney said.
"Color development has always been a very high priority of ours," he said. "We have about 100 different colors plus there are a fair number of colors we don't make as standard items but we make them for matching up old work."
In order to maintain their high standards for quality the company has both internal and external methods to make that happen. Mahoney said they have quarterly research and development meetings where color is one of the main topics.
"It's an open meeting with our key people and we get feedback from the marketplace," Mahoney said.
To insure the company is adhering to set standards they are also audited by the International Standards Organization.
"This is a national organization for quality standards," Mahoney said. He said a steering committee meets once a month to discuss quality and to make sure the company is maintaining the set standards.
The Sergeant Bluff plant underwent a $12 million modernization in 1997 and the one in Adel had an $18 million update in 2000. Both facilities have automated handling equipment and state-of-the-art computer controls. The updated plants feature precise robotic handling equipment, a vertical lift cutter for a crisp architectural edge, a water-sealed kiln ensuring color uniformity and sophisticated computer controls that insure consistency in brick production.
Mahoney said the 370-foot kiln in Sergeant Bluff used to make the bricks is unique. "It's called a hydrocasing kiln. It has metal on the top and sides. The bottom of the kiln is water which makes a perfect seal. This kiln has a very even temperature gradient and a very even color gradient."
Initial plans in 1997 called for increasing the production in Sergeant Bluff by about 40 percent. They hoped to be able to sell out each year's production in seven or eight years. The company exceeded its expectations, Mahoney said.
"In the years 1999 and 2000 we sold out," he said. "So it was amazing. That gave us the nerve to build a new plant at our other location in Adel. That was built in 2000 and started up in 2001. The two plants complement each other in the sense of different colors. Plus it adds diversity in our markets."
Although Sioux City Brick only has about 1 percent of the brick market in the U.S. it is moving forward.
"Where we used to do 60 or 70 million brick a year we're now doing over 110 million bricks a year," Mahoney said. "And that's in a period of about seven years."
The majority of brick manufactured by Sioux City Brick and Tile is exported to other parts of the country.
"We make 110 million bricks a year and the state of Iowa consumes about 17 or 18 million so most of our brick is going out of state," Mahoney said.
He said the company has about 125 independent distributors throughout the country. Distribution showrooms and warehouses supplying brick to Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and North and South Dakota are located in Sioux City, Des Moines and Bloomington, Minn.
The company does have good visibility in national markets with several large projects. Among those projects are: The ABC Television broadcasting studio in New York City, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune building, the Spiegel Building in Chicago, the 65-story Carnegie Tower in New York City and Digital Equipment Offices in Shrewsbury, Mass. Local projects include the Woodbury County Courthouse built in 1915 and Eppley Auditorium on the campus of Morningside College built in 1960.
Having support from the local community has greatly contributed to the success of Sioux City Brick and Tile, Mahoney said.
"We've had good community support both here in Sergeant Bluff and in Adel," he said. "When Sergeant Bluff needed a sponsor for the rail siding on Highway 75 we were able to get the money for them because we were building the new plant there. Then they helped us by building a separate road to the cemetery so it wouldn't go right through our new plant. It was a win-win situation."
He said the state of Iowa has also been very helpful in giving tax breaks for their new equipment.
"You hear more about the state of South Dakota having no state income tax but they tax other things that the state of Iowa doesn't," he said. "So we're happy that this is our home base and we certainly have had a good relationship with the local and state governments."
