DIVISION SIX — BUSINESS. 46 1 



billiard hall. It was commenced in August, 1885, ^nd they moved their 

 grocery into it in October. The bricks were obtained from an old brickyard 

 on Rose's ranch, east side of Santa Anita Avenue ; and the walls were laid 

 up by Irvin Wilson. The second brick store was the Frost Block, built by 

 E. S. Frost, about 100 feet east of the other — commenced in September and 

 completed in November, 1885 ; these bricks were also hauled from the old 

 yard on Rose's ranch. 



The first brickyard ever started here was by Gass, Simons & Hubbard 

 of the City Brick Company at lyos Angeles, in February and March, 1884. 

 They had the contract for brick foundation of the Raymond Hotel, and 

 decided to make their bricks here instead of hauling them up from Los 

 Angeles. Their yard and kilns for this job were just across the roadway 

 east from the Raymond barn. Then after completing this job they moved 

 their works to a site on Euclid Avenue just north of Maine street. In a year 

 or two the clay gave out here, and they moved over onto Gen. Edwin Ward's 

 land, on Madeline Drive west of Fair Oaks Avenue. They operated here 

 until "the boom busted," and then retired from the Pasadena field. This 

 first brick company furnished the bricks for four of our historic buildings : 

 I — The Raymond hotel foundations, which took over half a million. 2 — 

 The Ward Bro. 's block, just north of Williams Hall. 3— The first National 

 Bank building. 4 — The Carlton Hotel block. The Mr. Simons of this 

 company was a cousin of the Simons Bros, who now own the steam brick 

 works, but they never had any connection in the brick business. 



A report published in the Pasadefia Union said that the S. G. V. railroad 

 in the first seven months of its operation had hauled 76 car loads or 7,000,000 

 bricks up from Eos Angeles to Pasadena. This was " boom " time. 



During the winter of 1885-6 Joseph Simons, the head of the Simons 

 Bros. Brick Co., came here from Hamburg, Iowa, and formed a business 

 connection with John S. Mills and Dr. S. Rosenberger to start a brickyard, 

 which he located and put in operation in the spring of 1886, on Mills's land 

 on Raymond Avenue below the Gas Works. This yard was run one season 

 and then abandoned. Simons went hunting for more clay, and finally found 

 the valuable deposit where the steam works now stand, on Glenarm street 

 between Moline and Eake Avenues. Here he started a hand yard in the 

 spring of 1888 and made a success of it, so that in the spring of 1894, 

 having been joined by his father and younger brothers, he put in a steam 

 plant. The company now [1895] consists of Joseph Simons, manager ; E. 

 O. Simons, secretary ; Walter R. Simons, ass't secretary. Their plant com- 

 prises a 40-horse power steam engine, and a Potts patent brick machine 

 which is entirely automatic, from the raw unwet clay to moulded bricks 

 ready for the dry -yard ; and has a capacity of 45,000 bricks per day. The 

 yard has 40,000 pallets or drying trays. They have about six acres of land ; 

 own the cottages for their workmen, and employ forty -five hands — no 



