Charles Loose and W. L. Taylor, both from Terre Haute,
Indiana, founded the Pittsburg Paving Brick Company in
1899 with a local group of businessmen, locating the
plant east of Pittsburg on Fourth Street, where the Mission
Clay plant is today. Loose & Taylor came to the Pittsburg
area in search of shale that could be used in the production
of vitrified hollow bricks and paving bricks. They found
that the Pittsburg area contained one of the largest
and best clay beds in the United States. The two gentlemen
agreed to build a plant in Pittsburg with a start up
of $25,000 if local aid was supplied in the amount of
$9,000. The Pittsburg stockholders, J. T. Moore, J. B.
Smith, C. A. Miller, F. V. Howell, A. O. Blair, O. K.
Dean, A. L. Graves, A. K. Lanyon, C. C. Henderlider,
J. R. Lindburg, H. B. Kumm, W. J. Watson, E. F. Porter,
E. C. Hodd, F. C. Werner, C. S. Smith, A. E. Maxwell,
A. H. Shafer, A. H. Schlanger, George Biles, Paul Biles,
J. A. Gibson, A. Besse and J. L. Taylor put up the required
local contribution while Taylor and Loose put in $16,000.
The Pittsburg Paving Brick Company was formed with Loose
and Taylor owning 60 percent of the stock and the group
of Pittsburg men the other 20 percent. The plant wasn’t
able to produce any payouts because all of the initial
investment went for the building of the plant and kilns.
After a year or so, it was decided to sell the plant
to Robert Nesch for $25,000, the amount of the initial
investment. Nesch already was the owner of the Pittsburg
Vitrified Brick Company in the area that today is
just north of the Walnut Street entrance to Lincoln Park.
At that time, the Pittsburg Paving Brick Co. plant covered
15 acres with the company controlling 150 acres of land
around it, which supplied the raw material, clay. The
name was changed to The Pittsburg Sewer and Conduit Pipe
Company and it began to make clay sewer pipes. Nesch
found that running two plants were too much so with a
strong recommendation from A. H. Schlanger, he sold the
business to Walter S. Dickey around 1910.
W. S. Dickey had formed the Dickey Company in 1885 in
the Kansas City area making clay sewer pipes. The company
eventually made Dickey the largest producer of clay pipes
in the country with 26 plants in 12 states and offices
in Chicago, Mexico City, Atlanta and Georgia. In the
Wall Street Crash of 1929, Dickey lost his entire fortune,
dying of a heart attack in 1931 greatly in debt. In 1970,
the company’s headquarters were moved to Pittsburg
from Kansas City.
