OpenStreetMap (new tab)

Google Map (new tab)

Google Streetview (new tab)

Overview

Founded in 1887 as the Los Angeles Pressed Brick and Terra Cotta Company, owner Charles H. Frost built this company into a leading supplier of brick and tile in Southern California. This first factory complex operated from 1887 until 1916 on a site bounded by College Street (on the north) Alpine Street (south), Cleveland Street (east) and an alley that is no longer in existence to the west. This factory produced fire brick, pressed brick, cream, buff, red, gray and old gold standard and Roman-shaped bricks until it ceased operation in 1916.

Building History

Charles H. Frost (1844-1916), born in Ithaca, NY, founded the Los Angeles Pressed Brick and Terra Cotta Company in 1887, soon after he moved to Pasadena, CA, from Chicago, IL. In Chicago, he had founded C.H. Frost and Company in 1877, and had some success there supplying bricks to a city rebuilding after the disastrous fire of October 8-10, 1871. Like many Midwesterners, Frost relocated to Pasadena to recover his health, and he moved to Southern California in the midst of a great real estate boom, suggesting to him the profitability of starting another pressed brick concern. Over the years Frost became acquainted with a number of the region's wealthiest businessmen, including New York-born Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927), owner of the Pacific Electric system and many other companies, Indiana-born William George Kerckhoff (1856-1929), co-owner of the Kerckhoff-Cuzner Lumber Company, New Yorker Isaac Newton Van Nuys (1835 or 1836-1912,), a wheat farmer and landowner, and Pensylvanian J. Ross Clark(1850-1927), a banker and railroad owner, all of whom served as directors of Frost's company at various times. With this deep financial backing and network of connections, Frost was destined to prosper.

The firm dropped the production of terra cotta during a serious recession in 1894 and became a incorporated as a joint stock company in 1903, the bulk of the stock controlled by Frost and his son, Howard, who would take over the company following his father's demise in 1916.

The Los Angeles Pressed Brick and Terra Cotta Company Factory was a leading producer of bricks and tile products during the late 19th century and early 20th century in Southern California. The factory complex took up a long stretch of real estate on Cleveland Street at the intersection of College Street. In 1891, Charles H. Frost was the president, W.L. Carter, the vice-president, L.F. Miller the secretary. The Los Angeles, California, City Directory, 1891, indicated that it stood on the southwest corner of College and Cleveland Streets. (See Los Angeles, California, City Directory, 1891, p. 419.)

Production at this facility ceased in 1916, when a newer and more efficient factory served by better rail transportation lines, opened at 952 Date Street, later renamed Bauchet Street, in Downtown Los Angeles's Mission Junction section. At its height the Los Angeles Pressed Brick Company (its name was shortened in 1894) would operate plants in four factories, the main one is Los Angeles, and others in Santa Monica, CA, Alberhill, Riverside County, CA, and Richmond, CA, in Northern CA.

Building Notes

In 1890, the Los Angeles Pressed Brick and Terra Cotta Company complex contained four kilns with two smoke stacks lining the northwest portion of the property. An air drying room stood just to the south of the kilns. A clay storage room stood on the northern periphery separated by three houses from College Street. Below the clay storage room was a press room to the southeast and a work shop to the southeast of it. Along the southeast periphery lining Cleveland Street, was an engine room and main office. To the south of this were a crushing and grinding room, molding rooms on two floors and to the south of this, and another space accommodating molding on the first and second floors and drying on the third. The crushing and molding rooms were topped by corrugated iron roofs. Three brick storage sheds stood on the complex's southern side. Two more dwellings separated the complex's southern border from Alpine Street.

Demolition

The factory was razed, and replaced by a number of apartments buildings and residences. An alley running along the northwest border of the factory's border was vacated in later years. Residences and apartments took up the space once occupied by this small thoroughfare.

PCAD id: 23288