Brick Making on Broomilaw Point

Brick Making on Broomilaw Point. ca. 1882-1919. , John Tucker's small factory at Broomilaw Point was one of several brickyards that operated in the City of Alexandria. Park Agnew and M.B. Harlow bought the brickworks in 1890, expanding and mechanizing Tucker's small operation. By 1890, the Alexandria Brick Company was one of three large brick manufacturies in Alexandria. The brickworks employed 50 people and produced both hand-made and machine-made bricks. Renamed the Bromilaw Brick Company in 1907, the brickworks continued to turn out bricks until 1919, when it was destroyed by fire., The Alexandria Brick Company's updraft kilns drew heated air upward onto the firing floor from fireboxes or "eyes" spaced along the outside the kiln. The system of grates and flues beneath the firing floor that distributed the heated air enabled operators to maintain a constant firing temperature. The Company operated five pairs of 13-eye coal fired kilns that could turn out from 60,000 to 75,000 bricks per day. Even larger brickworks were located north of Alexandria, in what is now Arlington County.