Real Estate Transfers. The following is a list of real estate transfers for the week ending Oct. 9, as appears on record at the Register’s office: H. L. Blodgett to Charles Butler, 18 ¼ acres, Winona, $6,000. This is better known as the brickyard property in Gilmore Valley. (The Winona Daily Republican, Tuesday, October 12, 1869, Page 3)
Because of the abundance of surface clay near Winona there were a number of brickyards in this vicinity – four of them near Dresbach alone – and Philip Biesanz finally became associated with Charles Butler, a well-known Winona contractor who had established a brick yard in Gilmore Valley in 1866. Becomes Foreman. Philip Biesanz was retained as a foreman by Butler who earlier had laid the first brick in Winona in the construction of the Orrin Smith & Sons Bank in 1856. In 1871 Philip Biesanz purchased the Gilmore Valley brick yards from Butler and subsequently opened a stone quarry still operated by the Biesanz family. (The Winona Daily News, Saturday, November 19, 1955, Page 94)