original 19th century common or "pink" incised brick salvaged from the former site of the charles place lomax building at 14, 16, & 18 charles place. pictured for reference is a cobalt blue hutchinson style blobtop, manufactured for john lomax during the same era. the brick was discovered when the foundation walls of the plant were unearthed during city street expansion. several pottery bottles stowed away were also found in several basement cavities. john a. lomax was one of chicago's two bottling giants, who started distributing soda water from 38 w. lake street in 1854. in 1859, the plant was destroyed by fire and operations were moved to a two-story frame building located at 16 charles place. as business grew, in 1871 john and his son george erected a large masonry building, which was consumed by the great chicago fire the same year. shortly after, lomax rebuilt an even larger four-story facility that was advertised as being the "largest bottling house in the world.” during their peak production years, lomax serviced more than five thousand of the approximately seven thousand saloons across the city of chicago. their bottling works furnished soda-waters, ginger ale, mineral and spring water, ales and other drinks. the company ceased operations in 1885. this brick, a light reddish brown or "cream city brick" was salvaged from a chicago area excavation. it is stamped along the top with the maker's mark "i b co.", and a triangle (union symbol). the illinois brick company started in the chicago area around 1884. by the mid-depression it had absorbed some 40 yards, some of which continued operating until about 1974. in chicago's building materials industry, the production of brick was as important as the quarrying and cutting of limestone. the city's brick factories, several of which came to be concentrated on the southern edge of the city in blue island, were among the largest in the nation. as early as the middle of the 1850s, there were over 20 large brickyards in the area, which transformed clay (abundant in local soils) into a total of nearly 100 million bricks per year. the use of brickmaking machines, introduced to chicago in 1856 by m. o. walker, allowed the output of individual yards to soar. the brickyard of strauss, hahne & co. in blue island, established in 1863, was making over 25 million bricks per year by the 1870s. by the beginning of the 1890s, the metropolitan area was home to about 60 brickyards, which made a total of about 600 million bricks annually. nearly half of this output came from the six largest yards, several of which were owned by local brick kings d. v. purington and frank alsip. the alsip-owned yard at blue island, which covered 150 acres, was one of the largest in the world at the time. by the beginning of the twentieth century, many of the area's yards were controlled by the chicago-based illinois brick company. when local brick production peaked in the 1920s, the illinois brick company operated 10 yards with a total annual output of about 685 million bricks. by the latter part of the twentieth century, the relative importance of quarrying and brickmaking in the local economy had declined.