Houston County. The loam everywhere is suitable for making brick, which are uniformly red. The following establishments were seen: Brick were formerly made at La Crescent. (The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, The Fifth Annual Report, For The Year 1876, N. H. Winchell, The Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, 1877, Page 49)
Brick were formerly made at La Crescent. (The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, Volume I, 1872-1882, N. H. Winchell and Warren Upham, Johnson, Smith & Harrison, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1884, Page 234)
Williams, in company with another, held up and robbed William E. Potter of La Crescent in 1895. They secured a sum of money from the aged man and started a gristmill. Later they were confronted with evidence of the crime and confessed the holdup. Williams received ten years at Stillwater and his companion, Connolly of La Cresent, seven years. (The Minneapolis Journal, Monday Evening, October 9, 1905, Page 13)
There were no brick yards in operation in the county (Houston) in 1912, but old plants were located in former years at nearly every town in the county, - Money Creek, Spring Grove, La Crescent, Houston, and at other localities. Common red brick can be made from the loess at nearly any locality in the county. (Clays and Shales of Minnesota, Frank F. Grout and E. K. Soper, The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1914, Page 112)