Evergreen Cemetery is reported in a shocking condition and should, in the name of decency if not of humanity, receive some attention from the citizens if not from the trustees. A large portion of the fence has been torn away and destroyed; a road to the brick yard has been located through it over graves and against palings in the most heartless sacrilegious manner imaginable, defacing and obliterating lines, marks and mounds with a brutal indifference. Why in the name of all reason is a public thoroughfare permitted to be opened through the resting place of the dead? We will venture the assertion that these despoilers would not thus deface the burying place of their own children; parents or friends, and why should they be permitted to intrude upon others? (Brainerd Tribune, April 19, 1879)
Mr. Wm. Schwartz gave us a call this week to say, with reference to the article appearing in the Tribune last week, that his teams in crossing the cemetery grounds do not pass over any graves or against any palings, but keep the avenue the entire distance, which he claims they have a right to do, though he says other teams do travel promiscuously over the grounds defacing and mutilating the graves, palings, etc., as stated by the Tribune last week. The Tribune did not state, because it did not know, what teams were doing the damage, nor did it care. It was enough that it was being done, and that a public road was being located across the grounds, which we insist should be stopped short. We also insist that Mr. Schwartz is in error when he claims the right to use the cemetery avenue as a public thoroughfare, which will be made apparent if an organization is ever perfected. Mr. Schwartz also informed us that the fire which raged with such destructive fury in that vicinity on Sunday last destroying the fence, palings, headstones, etc., was set by a lot of boys who were seen in the act by Mrs. Weist, his partner’s wife, and we are informed that an effort will be made to identify the young villains and mete out to them the punishment they so richly deserve. The fire referred to, in addition to the destruction of the cemetery property, came very near consuming the buildings, machinery, wood and outfit of Mr. Schwartz’s brick yard, and did burn two or three cords of wood. A clean sweep of everything was only prevented by the most arduous efforts of Mr. Schwartz and his entire crew who fought fire continually from Sunday night until Tuesday morning without sleep, rest or cessation. The Tribune article of last week is, however, we are pleased to observe, having the wholesome effect to awaken an interest in this sadly neglected subject - our cemetery - which has resulted in the call for a public meeting appearing elsewhere in this issue, the object of which is to elect a board of trustees and otherwise perfect an organization which can sell and give title to lots, and thus create a fund for the improvement and protection of the grounds. We hope the attendance will be large and that the effort will not meet the fate of its several predecessors, that of a fizzle. (Brainerd Tribune, April 26, 1879)
Schwartz Wm…Brainerd (Minnesota State Gazetteer and Business Directory including Dakota Territory 1880-81, Volume II, R. L. Polk & Co. and A. C. Danser, St. Paul and Detroit, Page 978)
The city engineer also submitted proposals for furnishing brick for sewer purposes. William Schwartz, Brainerd, $10.65 per thousand. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Saturday Morning, July 7, 1883, Volume VI, Number 188, Page 5)
December 1883. Wm. Schwartz, Brainerd, 44 M brick, at 7.50, at Brainerd…333.00. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Sunday Morning, December 28, 1884, Volume VII, Number 363, Page 10)
William Schwartz…246 M brick at Brainerd, at $7.50 per M…$1,845.00. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Tuesday Morning, March 4, 1884, Volume VII, Number 64, Page 6)
August 1884. Wm. Schwartz, Brainerd, Minn., 14 M brick…112.00. September 1884. Wm. Schwartz, Brainerd, 85 M brick at 8.00…680. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Sunday Morning, December 28, 1884, Volume VII, Number 363, Page 11)
The Brainerd steam brickyard has had an order for 3,000,000 brick from Duluth parties. (The Winona Daily Republican, Thursday, March 5, 1885, Page 2)
Brainerd. Adolph Theis, manager of the Schwartz brick yards, was kicked on the forehead by a vicious horse on Saturday and had his skull fractured. He will recover. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Tuesday Morning, December 15, 1885, Volume VII, Number 349, Page 5)
In 1879 brick-making was begun by William Schwartz on the east side of the Mississippi a mile northeast of Brainerd. His product in 1880 was about 2,000,000, and in 1881 about 4,000,000, half of them being used in building the Northern Pacific railroad shops in Brainerd, and many of the remainder by other builders in that city, while some are sold in Duluth and along the Northern Pacific railroad west to Dakota. The price is $10 per thousand, loaded on the cars. Jack pine, quite pitchy and well adapted for brick-burning, costs $2 per cord. A branch railroad, one mile long, is built to this brick-yard. The excavation for clay is beside the Mississippi river, which is here bordered by a nearly level plain elevated about 55 feet above ordinary low water. At the top, 10 to 15 feet of sand is removed; next is a bed of horizontally laminated, dark bluish clay, 25 feet; then similar clay, free from gravel but showing no lines of lamination, 10 or 15 feet, to the water-level. The whole section is modified drift. All this clay is very "strong," requiring in brick-making an intermixture of one part of sand to two of the clay. The bricks are cream-colored and of excellent quality. No fossils nor wood have been found in this excavation. The clay deposit has a large extent, being found by borings to reach nearly a mile along the river, with a width of a half mile. Its southwest end is near the cemetery, a half mile from the centre of Brainerd. (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 609)
About a mile northeast of Brainerd a yard was started in 1876 to produce a cream-colored brick from laminated clays exposed in the Mississippi River bluff near the dam. The clay is overlain by about 20 feet of sand, and where protected by the sand from weathering is uniformly gray in color and conspicuously laminated. The work has been abandoned, as most of the easily accessible clay has been used up, and the removal of 20 feet of sand to obtain 30 feet of clay did not appear to be profitable. The clay is of excellent quality, and either this or some neighboring deposit may yet be used, though exposures are not numerous and none are reported closer to the town. In 1886, at about the time the clay along the river was abandoned, an outcrop of similar laminated material was found a few hundred yards to the east, where a tributary stream had eroded the overlying sand. (Clays and Shales of Minnesota, Frank F. Grout with contributions by E. K. Soper, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1919, Page 147)
Between 1878 and 1890 making brick constitutes a major industry in Brainerd. It reaches its peak between 1882 and 1886. The premier brick-maker is William Schwartz, a German who comes to Brainerd about 1875 and in 1878 purchases a piece of land about a mile up-river from Main Street. (Now bordered on the east by Mill Avenue.) The land contains a bed of clay thirty feet thick; when fired, the clay turns to an attractive cream or buff color, Schwartz calls his business the Brainerd Steam Brick Yards. His process makes an exceptionally tough and durable brick, which quickly becomes famous and is called "Milwaukee cream brick" for the city, which is known for such brick. He ships to Duluth and the Twin Cities and places in between. The business becomes so big that it warrants the Northern Pacific building in May of 1881 a mile and a half long railroad spur, north from its shop yards to serve this infant industry brickyard. (The spur currently runs down the avenue adjacent to Evergreen Cemetery to the paper mill in northeast Brainerd.) Among the local buildings of note built with Schwartz’s steam brick: the Hartley Block, burned; the McFadden-Westphal Building, burned[?]; the First National Bank Building (Hartley’s) Sixth and Front; former court house (apartment building on the southeast corner of Fourth and Kingwood); the Sheriff's home, demolished; the old city jail, once a part of Meyers Cleaners and Laundry, demolished; the Northern Pacific shop buildings; the old high school building, burned in 1928 or 1929; all the grade school buildings, demolished in 1936; C. N. Parker’s street car power-house, demolished[?]; Park Opera House, north side of Front Street at Fifth, demolished, 1995; and several dozen north side residences erected by C. B. Sleeper, W. D. McKay, and others. In 1884 Schwartz is divorced and he quits making bricks; in 1887 he leaves Brainerd and in 1890 all brick-making stops. (Brainerd 1871-1946, Carl Zapffe, Colwell Press, Incorporated, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1946, Pages 37-38)