Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1910 — SHALE BRICK INDUSTRY. [ARTICLE]

SHALE BRICK INDUSTRY.

State Geologist Foretold the Possibilities in 1903 Report. W. S. Blatchley, state geologist. has received a letter that made him feel good. It was from N. Y. Trautman, president of the Medora Shale Brick Company, of Medora. Ind., and told Mr. | Blatchley of the ffapid development of the shale brick industry in that section. It reminded Mr. Blatchley that in 1903 he explained to Trautnjan, for the first time, I the value of knobstone shale as a brick-making material, and the company which Trautman represents results from that letter. - “Knobstone shale is the most abundant brick-making material in Indiana'’ said Mr. Blatchley. I “In 1897 Chad, in my. annual re[port, a chapter on this shale, in

which I pointed out its value for ihat purpose and told of the extensive deposits in this state. Avbout that time the ciy of Seymour use<Ka million Ohio paving brick in constructing paved streets, paying a high price for them, when, at the same time, there existed, within a few miles of Seymour, rich deposits of knobstone shale from which the same kind of brick could have been made and the money kept at home. But since the value of the shale has been pointed out brick and sewer pipe factories have been established at numerous places in the shale territory and that industry in Indiana has grown to enormous proportions. Knobstone shale is found in a broad strip of Indiana, extending from Benton county, in a southeasterly direction to Floyd county, on the Ohio river. Included in the shale belt are the counties of Jasper, Benton, Tippecanoe, Warren, Montgomery, Boone, Hendricks, Putnam, Morgan, Johnson. Brown, Monroe, Bartholomew, Jackson, Lawrence, Washington, Scott and Floyd. jThe possibilities for the development of the shale industry in Indiana are great.”