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An Interview with

Jasper Vincent PhillipsSeptember, 1977

Interviewed byMrs. Frances Oberschmidt

MississippiDepartment of Archives and History

and theLincoln-Lawrence-Franklin Regional Library

Oral History ProjectBrookhaven and Vicinity

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AU 492OR 1979.6.31Interviewee:Interviewer:

Title:

Scope Note:

Jasper Vincent PhillipsFrances M. Oberschmidt

An interview with Jasper Vincent Phillips, September1977 / interviewed by Frances M. Oberschmidt

The Linco1n-Lawrence-Franklin Regional LibrarySystem conducted oral history interviews with localcitizens. The interviewees included long-term residentsof the Lincoln, Lawrence and Franklin County areas.

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OBERSCHMIDT: Mr. Phillips, you're the president of the Brookhaven

Pressed Brick Company. Can you tell me any of the past history of the com-

pany? Who established it?

PHILLIPS: The company was established in 1906 by my father. And

it was originally started as a dry-press (process plant) business in order to

take advantage of the facing brick market in this area which was supplied at

that time by the St. Louis Hydraulic Brick Company in St. Louis, Missouri.

For instance, the Inez Hotel has a St. Louis Hydraulic brick on the exterior

and the back-up brick were made from local plants who were largely small

family operations, operated by the family, and handmade brick that were

hand-molded, set out on the lot to dry (in the sun) and set in scove kilns

and then fired with wood which made a beautiful brick but it brought a very

low price at that time because everybody wanted a (smooth finished) fancy

brick like the brick from St. Louis for a facing brick. So he - at that time,

they set out to make this facing brick to compete with St. Louis for the

facing brick market in this area.

OBERSCHMIDT: Now, this was your father?

PHILLIPS: Yes.

OBERSCHMIDT: And he at that time had married your mother who was

Eileen Becker.

PHILLIPS: Yes, Eileen Becker. And the post office is an example

of the type brick he made at that time. So it was along then they had large

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up-draft kilns (that were gradually) fired with wood and then with coal. And

they had problems with controlling the temperature. * .(Experience was the only

control available.) Later, in about 1916, M. G. Becker, who was one of my

mother's younger brothers, joined the company and got interested in the busi-

ness. (He left to) serve in World War I and then later came back. He furthered

his training in ceramics at Ohio State University and came back (to help) and

develop the plant. In 1929 * (the first tunnel kiln in the south was put into

operation.) At that time, the production was still just dry-pressed brick

although many advances had been made in production of stiff-mud extrusion. *(In the industry ...)

OBERSCHMIDT: Let's see, Mr. Ferd came back about when?

PHILLIPS: In about 1918, Mr. Ferd Becker came into the business

and was active in the office and financial management of the affairs of the

company; in the plant there was my father and Cleve Becker. *OBERSCHMIDT: That's alright. I just wanted to be sure to establish

when Mr. Ferd came. Now we'll go back to 1930. You want me to play that

back?

PHILLIPS: Yes. (Pause.) And then in the 1930's, we commenced

development of stiff-mud processes in the way of stiff-mud facing brick and

hollow clay tile and paving brick and fire brick and during this time then,

Ferd Becker's son, Walter Becker, joined the company and has been with the

company ever since. He is now general manager and chairman of the board.

The products of the company have.been used in many outstanding buildings in

nearly every state east of the Mississippi. One of the interesting products

that was developed by this company was the clay screen tile which served as a

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solar shield against the sunlight heating up the interior of the buildings

that were largely faced with glass. This screen has a depth and a slant to

it so that the rays of "the sun would hit the glass behind it only when it was

very low in the morning or very low in the evening and not too hot. Some of

the buildings that were covered with clay screen tile were able to effect

tremendous savings in air conditioning. The Caribe building on Canal Street

in New Orleans is an example of this. The architects Curtis and Davis designed

the building to house their own offices and they wanted a striking-looking

building that would yet be economical and easy to maintain. They designed

the air conditioning load to carry what would be expected from a five (5)

story building and found that with that much glass - and found that the clay

screen tile saved a third of their cooling costs in the summertime, which

was an interesting development. The material is so old that nobody really

knows where it really started. Most people think that screen tile originated

in India but you can see examples of it in North Africa that were built before

the Romans even came into there. And then during the heighth of the Moorish

empire, they find examples of screen tiles where they kept the sun out and let

the air in. We have sold it even in Canada to prevent snow glare. They had

not problems of cooling but they did in the summertime. They did want to

design buildings that used glass but they needed something to prevent snow

glare from coming in the buildings and they found out that the solar screen

did that. That's one of the materials.

Now, most so many thing~ (uses for old items) that are (products of)

the brick business have come and gone. They enjoy popularity, wide-spread

acceptance, and then the use is dropped for a while and then it comes again.

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For instance, the old handmade brick that were a drag on the market when

this plant was started are now almost priceless. When you can find them at

all. (Secondhand brick are popular but) they are very expensive and the only

reliable source for secondhand brick now is in the wrecking markets of

Chicago and St. Louis (and they are not handmade - just secondhand). Today

we're selling tremendous quantities of used brick from Chicago and they bring

about twice the price of a good, new, used manufactured brick.

OBERSCHMIDT: That's amazing. Back to your last remark about the

brick that you use for snow screen and sun screen and all, is that used in

building E-3 buildings?

PHILLIPS: No, that's different. The E-3 concept is something

entirely different. It's (based) on insulation; this (screen tile) brick

has no great value for insulating. Its value is that it keeps the rays of

the sun from striking the building; * if you're under a tree in the shade,

you're cooler than you would be if you were out in the sun where the rays

hit you.

OBERSCHMIDT: That's interesting.

PHILLIPS: This prevents the direct rays of the sun from striking

the walls of the building and in many cases in modern buildings, that wall

is glass, you see? Glass transmits the heat right through to the inside

of the building.

OBERSCHMIDT: Well now, let's go back to in the early days. How

was the brick, how did you get it to the market? It's not worth anything

unless you get it to the market.

PHILLIPS: Yes, in the early days of course, they were locally

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moved with mules and wagons and then by rail. (For more distant shipments)

there was a spur track in from the Mississippi Central Railroad and then

one from the - what did we call that? - that was the B - N ...

OBERSCHMIDT: "Peavine." Brookhaven and ...

PHILLIPS: Brookhaven and Monticello Railroads that came in; "p"

and what was it?

OBERSCHMIDT: The nickname was "Peavine" of the Pearl River.

PHILLIPS: Yes, the Pearl River was a nickname of the Peavine.

The spur track came in there and then they were shipped by rail and ninety-

five (95) percent of the (brick) shipment was at that time by rail. Since

that time, gradually with the improvement of highways and improvements in

trucks and improvement in handling and packaging of brick it has - from

this plant at least - just about reversed itself. It's ninety-five (95)

percent by truck and about five (5) percent by rail.

OBERSCHMIDT: How about this energy problem that we have? What's

it look like that's going to do to the shipping?

PHILLIPS: Well, the energy problem will have its effect on the

delivery and it will also have its effect on the production. Is that what

you mean?

OBERSCHMIDT: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Well, looking ahead it seems to us that the (percentage

of rail shipments will increase.) A ton of material can be moved more

cheaply by rail than it can be by truck. Right now the economical truck-

ing radius is about two hundred (200) miles and it appears to us that this

in time as we move into the future that this economical trucking radius

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will shrink because it can be more efficiently moved by rail than it can

be by truck. In the plant it will also have its effect in that it will change

some of the designs~'the sizes of the brick, and the weight of the brick.

Whereas the average brick have been weighing around four (4) to four and

a quarter (4\) pounds, it will have more and more of a core up to and

beyond twenty-five (25) percent core which will reduce the weight of it

and also increase (decrease) the per square foot cost of firing it. That's

one of the effects it will have and it will also make the unit even at that

much more expensive than it has been in the past.

OBERSCHMIDT: Do you know anything else that you want to add to

this history of the brickyard? Did your family live on the property that

was owned by the brickyard when ...? How long was it you lived there?

PHILLIPS: Well, I can remember coming out as a child when we

moved into the house out here. I don't remember how old I was, but I

remember I was very young and we lived there until there was a fire in

1925 and then we moved to town and later built a house on Storm Avenue and

moved in there. Then the house (at the plant) was remodeled and M. G.

Becker moved into the house and he lived there and raised his family in

the house. Then he later built a house in Brookhaven which is now on

Chippewa Street and Mrs. Becker still lives there. All of her children

are married and gone. Then Walter Becker moved into the house and he's

lived there and raised his family and they're all moved out and now

Mr. and Mrs. Walter Becker still continue to live in the house. So the

manager of the brick company has always lived in that house.

OBERSCHMIDT: Well, how about your labor? What differences have

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you seen evolve from these developments with labor?

PHILLIPS: The labor has of course had big improvements made in

the tools with which' 'they operated. I can remember when we stripped the

topsoil off of the clay pits with slips and mules and men, and now it's

done with plows and tractors and bulldozers. And one man on a tractor

and one man on a bulldozer can do in a day about what (a much larger group

of) hard working men were able to accomplish in two (2) to three (3) weeks.

The same thing is true with the gathering of it and bringing it in. In

the plant the clay was moved up to the crushing machine with wheelbarrows

whereas now it is moved up with the front end loaders and the crushing

and screening is streamlined and efficient. Then the handling of the

brick though, a man today can't begin to handle as many brick per hour

when it is necessary to move them by hand as the old man did. When I

first started here, what we called a shader could handle a thousand (1,000)

(bricks) an hour. He would pick them up, put them in a wheelbarrow, and

roll them to a railroad car and then handle them again - place them in a

railroad car - and handle a thousand (1,000) brick an hour. Now, all the

man does is pick the brick up and lay it in a jig and put it in a five

hundred (500) brick package and it's picked up by a lift-truck and moved

over (away) and the man still does about a thousand (1,000) brick an hour.

OBERSCHMIDT: Well, that's amazing, isn't it? ,Progress didn't

help too much like that, did it? Well, how do you go about testing the

soil? Do you have to have a certain instrument to test that soil to see

how it's going to work?

PHILLIPS: Well; the men that bring in the clay have been there

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for years and they can look at it when they remove the topsoil and tell

whether it's good or not. If it's no good, they just leave it there and

if it is good, they bring it in.

OBERSCHMIDT: You don't have to put any chemicals in it in order

to make - just the dirt.

PHILLIPS: Just the clay. The clay is brought in and put in the

clay shed and stored and goes through what we call a "souring" - S-O-U-R-

I-N-G - souring process and then it's crushed and ground and screened and

then formed into either the dry-press - we still have the dry-press system

operating - either goes into the dry-press or the stiff-mud operation.

In the stiff-mud operation now we're using blends of our clays and clays

from Alabama and we also regrind "rejects" and "bats" which is a waste

material that has been fired and it's recrushed and reground and blended

back into the body of the brick which (improves the quality of the) brick

and makes it fire easier and fire straighter and truer.

OBERSCHMIDT: And how do you get the colors?

PHILLIPS: The color is gotten by the selection of clay you

use. Some clay will fire a light color * And then another one might

fire, another clay will fire red at a certain heat and then you take

the heat higher and it will fire pink and you take it still higher and it

will go into browns and tans. Further than that you can use manganese in

it - manganese ore which is a black powdered substance - and that will

turn brick black when they are·fired.

OBERSCHMIDT: That's interesting.

PHILLIPS: And then many of the brick now are coated. You (use

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any clay in the extrusion machine)t take another color and just put a

(different) clay slurry on the extruded column as it comes out of the

stiff-mud machine and that gives it (an entirely different appearance).

An example of that downtown would be the Southwest Saving and Loan Building.

That is a brick that had a coating on it. Gives it a little differentt

kind of an aged effectt and that has been a very popular trend on brick.

OBERSCHMIDT: Wellt Mr. Phillipst is there anything else you

want to add to this?

PHILLIPS: Wellt I think that about covers it.

OBERSCHMIDT: Wellt I think you've been mighty nice to do this

and I certainly thank you. Appreciate this interview.

PHILLIPS: Well, appreciate you coming.

(End of Interview)

(Transcribed by Rebecca R. Nations)

NOTICETh;<;"llJterial may beprotected by copyright'aw (Title 17 U.S. Code).

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Transcriber's Notes

* Marks deletion by interviewee.

() Parentheses enclose additional words or phrases included for clarification

by the interviewee, Mr. Phillips.

T'CETl1ls IIlO ri II may b9oro e I d t V CopVrlgn .

f ''I u.s. Code,

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