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Napoleon
B. Heafer
(1823-1898)
Napoleon B. Heafer was born on
December 14, 1823 in
Not much is known about Heafer’s
life in Bloomington before 1857. The
earliest
information that has been found about Heafer was an advertisement for a
brick
yard owned by him, located a half mile south-east of Bloomington on
what was then
known as Leroy Road. That same year, he
also journeyed west when gold was discovered at Pikes Peak in Colorado.
Napoleon, along with several other
Heafer still managed to become quite
wealthy, though not in the way he expected. Instead of gold, he made
his
fortune in bricks. In 1861, Heafer and James McGregor established a
brick yard
at the corner of Hannah Street and Croxton Avenue. Over the next 23
years, N.B.
Heafer and Co. expanded to include seven acres of ground and multiple
brick
yards, as well as a large pond that was often used for swimming
parties. By
1883, Heafer claimed that it was the largest clay tile factory in the
United
States.
By the late 1880s, the brick and
tile industry peaked due to an incredibly high demand from farmers
needing a
way to drain their swampy fields. Prior to clay tiles, the mole ditcher
was the
first crude instrument used to dig underground passages for excess
water.
However, nearly all of these ditches would eventually fill up with
loose dirt. Clay
was abundant in McLean County, and after much experimentation, Heafer
made his
first brick tile pipe in 1879. It was a round tile with a diameter of
about 3
inches. Later he made them as large as
24-30
inches in diameter, which was more effective. Eventually, nearly every
farm in
the county was drained to some extent, employing clay tiles.
The growth and development of downtown
Bloomington also helped Heafer. Bloomington was in need of better
streets to
accommodate increasing amounts of traffic.
The city of Bloomington experimented with different types
of payment
with little success before bricks were used.
Cedar wood paving blocks were used but were often damaged
by sharp
horseshoes and weather-related expansion and contraction. They also
employed
macadam, layers of crushed rock put down in such a way that traffic
compacted
it into a smooth surface. Creosote
soaked wood with tar binder was also employed as well.
The City Council also tried coal shaft debris
to be used in the paving of streets. In fact, in a report by the City
Council
printed in The Daily Pantagraph, the
coal shaft debris, which had previously been touted as the best paving
method,
was then called “worse than useless” and was henceforth abandoned. In
the
spring of 1875, Heafer persuaded the City Council to permit him to lay
a test
patch of brick pavement at the corner of Washington and Center streets. At the same time on the Nicholson Block, a
tar-soaked pine wood block was laid for comparison.
In the fall, the bricks were examined and appeared
to have held up better than the wood blocks, but many members of the
City
council were still not convinced that bricks would make better pavement. Finally, in 1877 Heafer convinced the council
to let them pave the entire block of Center Street west of the
courthouse with
their bricks. The pavement held up well,
so many more of Heafer’s bricks began to be used in paving more streets
in
Bloomington. Because of his success with
brick
paving, Heafer began to claim that he was the inventor of brick
pavement, which
is untrue. If he had been, he would have
become a multi-millionaire. In reality,
the first full brick block of pavement laid in the U.S. was in
Charleston, West
Virginia (Heafer’s hometown), in 1873.
Also, in the years after his death, a popular local legend
grew that
Bloomington was the site of the “first block of brick pavement in the
United
States.”
The bricks for his many projects
were made in Heafer’s factory, which was one of the few brick and tile
factories
in the United States with facilities for drying bricks in the winter.
In the
summer, the bricks were made by “gangs” of men, which included a
mud-wheeler, a
molder, and two off-bearerers. The mud-wheeler would bring wheelbarrows
of clay
and dump it on the molder’s table, and the molder would then throw
chunks of
clay into the mold. When he was done, the off-bearers would carry the
mold to
the level brickyard surface to dry. The average wage that these men
would make
was $3.75 a day for the molder, $2.25 a day for the mud wheelers, and
$1.00 a
day for the off bearers. These gangs were quite efficient and made up
to 5,000
bricks a day, allowing the factory to have a total output of 200,000
bricks
each day. In 1883, Heafer’s factory turned out 4,000,000 feet of clay
tile in
all sizes from three to twelve inches using an auger machine. The auger machine would extrude fairly stiff
clay through a die and then the bricks were cut apart with a wire. This type of brick making was common in the
Midwest.
Heafer bricks were used in many McLean
County buildings including the Durley Hall block, the McLean County
Courthouse,
the Ferre Building, the Waterworks Standpipe, the Roush building,
Stevenson
Flats, and the Arctic Ice Company. In August 1880, Heafer and McGregor
were
awarded a contract for $40,800 to provide bricks for the new McLean
County Jail
on
The brick and tile factory burned in
1888, a year after McGregor withdrew from the company. It was reported
that the
fire was possibly the work of an arsonist. Very little of the original
structure could be reclaimed, so Heafer decided to fully retire at that
point. Prior
to this, Heafer’s health had begun to fail beginning in 1883. From that
point
on, he slowly began to withdraw from the business, turning more of his
responsibilities over to his eldest son and partner, Edgar. On July 10,
1898,
Napoleon succumbed to his failing health (which was attributed to heart
trouble) and died at his home located at 505 E. Jefferson Street. He
had always
been known as a hard worker and during his life had endured and
survived many
hardships. He was buried next to his wife, who preceded him in death,
in By: Laurie
Peterson 2008
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