Mr. Aiton proposes to burn 200,000 brick in Glenwood next summer, all but 50,000 of which will be used in constructing the new court house. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Sunday Morning, February 16, 1879, Volume II, Number 33, Page 5)
John Aiton, who has the contract for building the court house at Glenwood, intends erecting a new brick hotel at that place the present season. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Wednesday Morning, March 19, 1879, Volume II, Number 64, Page 2)
In Glenwood bricks have been made by John Aiton since 1876. The clay occurs, as in Evansville and at Fergus Falls in Otter Tail county, on a hillside which in large part is till. It is in the northeast part of the village, about 50 feet above the lake. Next below the soil is almost horizontally laminated yellowish clay, of which a thickness of 4 feet is used. It contains in some portions streaks and tubular concretions of iron-oxide (limonite), and the lower part of this four feet is somewhat sandy. Still deeper the clay becomes more sandy and includes limy concretions. Fifteen feet below the surface, it is underlain by gray or bluish sand. No sand is mixed with the clay for brick-making. The product in 1879 was 300,000, sold at $7 to $10 per thousand. These are cream-colored bricks, varying in tint from greenish near the fire to reddish in the outer part of the kiln. (A Report on the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, 1882-1885, The Geology of Minnesota, Volume II, N. H. Winchell and Warren Upham, Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1888, Page 497)
The Douglas County News of April 21, 1881, had an Aiton advertisement, which said "John Aiton & Sons, Contractors and Builders, Alexandria, Minnesota. Brick, stone work, plain and ornamental plastering a specialty." Aiton’s brick yard was in Glenwood, Minnesota.
Page 144. At Glenwood a small plant was at work many years ago upon a superficial leached deposit of gray drift from which most of the lime-
Page 145. stone apparently had been removed. As the town has grown, this particular deposit has been leveled off and subdivided into city lots, and no similar deposit has been developed in the neighborhood. (Clays and Shales of Minnesota, Frank F. Grout and E. K. Soper, The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1914)