Mount Union borough

Welcome to Historic Mount Union

Photograph not reproduced here. The image that goes with this story is held by huntingdoncountyhistory.com and its credit does not permit republication, so it is cited rather than copied. See the original.

Welcome to Historic Mount Union!

We start from the air: Bricktown USA before 1960. At its peak the town ran three refractory plants at once: Harbison-Walker, General Refractories and North American Refractories. Harbison-Walker advertised its Mount Union operation in 1917 as the largest silica brick plant in the world, and the town became known as the silica brick capital of the world. The county's industrial survey puts the town itself more carefully: one of North America's largest producers of refractory brick. The brick era began in 1899 and ran a long way past the middle of the century. Harbison-Walker closed in 1985 and North American Refractories carried on until 1990.

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.

What the fact check changed. The post as published said Mount Union was "the largest producer of refractory silica brick in the world". No source says that. The superlative belongs to a single plant and comes from the company's own advertising: Shedd's 1991 county industrial survey records that Harbison-Walker called its Mount Union operation the largest silica brick plant in the world in a 1917 advertisement, and Welch's 1909 town history says the same of that plant. The survey describes the town itself, more carefully, as one of North America's largest producers of refractory brick. The end date was wrong too: the post said the brick era ran to about 1972, but the survey records Harbison-Walker closing in 1985 and North American Refractories continuing until 1990. The three plant names were right and are unchanged. Corrected 1 September 2026.

Sources

Nancy Shedd, Huntingdon County Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites Inventory (1991): the 1917 Harbison-Walker advertisement, the "silica brick capital of the world" name, Mount Union as one of North America's largest producers of refractory brick, and the closing dates (Harbison-Walker 1985, North American Refractories 1990). Cited to confirm; still in copyright, so not quoted at length here.
Charles Howard Welch, History of Mount Union, Shirleysburg and Shirley Township (1909), p. 342: "Mount Union enjoys the distinction of having the largest silica brick plant in the world - that of the Harbison-Walker Refractories Co."
Democratic Watchman (Bellefonte), 15 August 1930, p. 1, reporting that the North American Refractories plant at Mount Union was formerly the United States Refractories Corporation and had been sold to North American a few weeks earlier, and that more men were being called back to work. Cited to confirm the 1930 succession; not quoted, because the scan interleaves two columns.

Checked 2026-07-02 · Historic Mount Union collection

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