An Odd Gift: The Foster Brick

The Foster Brick:  Quite literally a
building block in Boise's history.

There’s an old home situated along my mail route that just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the neighborhood.  It is smaller in stature compared to the other homes around it, and looks as though a room or two was added on as the family grew.  (Indeed, this seems to actually be the case!)  Apparently this house was one of the first few buildings in the neighborhood.

An old man by the last name of Foster lives there.  When I first got this route (about 15 years ago), Mr. Foster was probably in his 70’s.  Everyday that I’d come by he’d either be outside in his coveralls working on an old truck of his, working in the yard or tending to the house.  Assuming, of course, that he wasn’t off doing maintenance work somewhere else.

His wife died about seven years ago and it seems that age started catching up with him after that dramatic change in his life.  I rarely see him now; his sleep schedule is mixed up and, on the rare occasion that he is outside when I come by, he looks like he’s going to lose his balance and crumble into a heap on the sidewalk.  But last summer both he and his daughter were outside when I came by.

“Rich!  Dad has a gift for you!” she said as I got out of the mail vehicle, walking toward the two of them to hand over their mail.  “He spent all morning out here looking for the best one, and he wants you to have it!”  I tried to keep a happy smile and hide my confusion.  What in the world was I about to have unloaded on me that came from around this old house?  And then he reached into the plastic shopping bag and pulled out… a brick. 

He was beaming like he was presenting me with a gold nugget the size of my fist.  A brick???  (Mental note to self:  keep smiling, act happy; think of something intelligent to say.)  “There must be a story behind this brick?” I asked. 

“Yes,” the daughter replied.  “It’s a Foster brick.”  (That was helpful.)  But then between the two of them the story unfolded.

Apparently around the beginning of the twentieth century his grandfather found a clay deposit in the area that was this neighborhood.  The clay was perfect for brick making.  And so began the enterprise that would become Foster and Son – a major supplier of bricks for the Boise area, and most likely all of southern Idaho.  The business would grow over the years; brick manufacturing would evolve from hand molds to machine made brick.

The brick pictured here was one of the original Foster bricks made by hand; this brick was created in (or very close to) 1904.  To buy this brick in that day a customer would have to part with three cents.  I found a cost of living calculator on the Internet (that only went back to the year 1913); three cents then is equal to seventy-nine cents now.  You can find comparable bricks at stores such as Lowe’s for just over fifty cents, but the quality seems to be much lower.

The Foster bricks were used in construction in turn-of-the-century Boise, and many of the homes and commercial buildings of the day were built with Foster bricks.  Some of these [now historic] buildings are still standing today.

The business flourished until the depression hit the United States, and then declined until the assets were sold to take care of mounting debts.  All that remains today are a few bricks in Mr. Foster’s yard and the one brick with a proud spot on one of my curio shelves.  The neighborhood around Mr. Foster’s home that I’ve been delivering mail in for all these years is known as Foster Heights.  I now understand why.

In a section of the September 19, 1916 edition of The Brick and Clay Record called “In The Wake of the News”, small personal snippets and events “of a Host of Interesting Happenings in the Varied Fields of Clayworking” were printed.  States were listed alphabetically, and under Idahowas the following entry:

“With a daily capacity of 30,000 brick and operated by a force of twenty-six men, the Foster and Son’s brick manufacturing plant at Boise, Idaho, is now one of the largest in the state, altho only a few months old.  On the same site thirty years ago the elder member of the firm, Frank Foster, Sr., started the manufacture of hand-mold brick, raking the clay from the surface of the land.  This he abandoned in 1911.  Long before this time, however, in sinking a well, Mr. Foster noticed a heavy blue substance suspended in the water flushed to the surface, revealing the presence of blue clay underneath.  In investigating his theory of the hidden deposit, founded years before at the time the well was drilled, a shaft was sunk this spring that proved the presence of the clay, which was found in a vein twelve feet in thickness and lying twenty-eight feet below the surface.  Immediately the plant was rebuilt, modern machinery installed and the manufacture of brick undertaken on a large scale.  A ready demand exists for the product of Foster and Son and a prosperous business has already been built up by the firm.”

I’ve received many little trinkets over the years from customers who have a special place in my heart, but who would have ever guessed that a brick would become my favorite?