at the north-west side of Nest lake in New London, Kandiyohi county, by Peter Larson, Jr., 200 to 300 M. yearly, at $8 to $10; (The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, The Eighth Annual Report for the Year 1879, Submitted to the President of the University, Feb. 18, 1880, The Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, MN, 1880, Page 120)
Bricks. The only brick-making in Kandiyohi county is that of Peter Larson, Jr., who has made bricks at the northwest side of Nest lake, in section 29, New London, since 1875. The bricks are cream-colored, with differences in tint according to the layers used and proportions of each. His yearly product is from 200,000 to 300,000, sold at $8 to $10 per thousand. On the average about one part of sand is used to mix with ten of clay. The opening for digging clay at the kiln is in the foot-slope of a swell that rises 30 feet or more above the lake. It has the same contour with ordinary swells of till; but excavation reveals the section illustrated in fig. 14. The base of the excavation is five feet above the lake. The upper stratum (a) is yellowish clay, finely laminated parallel with the surface, 4 to 5 feet in thickness; next below is sand (b), 1 to 2 feet; then clay (c), like the upper in color, but requiring more intermixture of sand for brick-making, 4 to 5 feet; and this is underlain, below the excavation, by a second bed of sand (d), of undetermined thickness, with water.
At a second pit, about twenty rods southeast from the last and similarly situated, being on the slope of the same swell, with the base of the excavation some five feet above the lake, there are 10 feet of yellowish clay, the upper portion most sandy, but having no layer that corresponds to the middle stratum of sand in the foregoing section. This clay as in that section is underlain by sand with water. The whole swell, comprising twenty acres, more or less, is formed of the same laminated clay, with no intermixed gravel. The laminae conform with the outlines of the surface, being thus inclined at the ends of the sections sections in these clay-pits five degrees or more. The islands and other shores of Nest lake are till, of the same color with this brick-clay. The upper portion of this clay makes cream-colored bricks, while some layers in its lower part give reddish bricks. (A Report on the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, 1882-1885, Volume II, N. H. Winchell and Warren Upham, Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1888, Page 240)
A mention is made of the brick-yard at Nest lake in the chapter on the geological survey of the county, published elsewhere. The plant continued to be operated until the early nineties, when the supply of clay unmixed with small fragments of limestone seemed to be exhausted and the yard was abandoned. The business was carried on for nearly twenty years. Brick was furnished for nearly all the early brick buildings at Willmar. In 1889 a contract for the courthouse at Granite Falls was filled. (Illustrated History and Descriptive and Biographical Review of Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, Published by Victor E. Lawson and J. Emil Nelson of the Willmar Tribune, The Pioneer Press Manufacturing Departments, 1905, Page 319)