Mount Union borough

The Plant Across the River

2. VIEW OF BRICK PLANT FROM KISTLER LOOKING WEST - Town of Kistler, Kistler, Mifflin County, PALibrary of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record. No known copyright restrictions. pa2824.photos.038901p

The third brickyard in town was started by two men who used to run the first one. R. P. M. Davis and Clinton V. Hackman, both former managers for Harbison-Walker, organized the Mount Union Refractories Company and built its plant in 1911 and 1912 on the edge of town along the Juniata. It opened with eight kilns. During the First World War they built twenty one more.

In 1922 the company put up a second plant in Clearfield County and renamed itself U.S. Refractories. In 1930 it merged into North American Refractories. The yard ran until March of 1990, and all but two of its beehive kilns came down after that.

This is the plant seen from Kistler, the town it built.

Nothing further from the county histories. The six histories held here end in 1913 and this story belongs to 1990, so there is no passage in them that bears on it. Rather than attach an unrelated page and let it look like corroboration, this story stands on the sources listed below.

Sources

HABS PA-5974 p.4
HABS PA-5974 p.7
LOC caption pa2824.photos.038901p

Checked 2026-09-02 · Historic Mount Union collection

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