Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 24, 1990 TAG: 9005250466
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: W-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: George Kegley
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Frank Underwood, a shipping supervisor, can recall when one man would load as many as 25,000 bricks from a pallet onto a truck in a day.
Underwood and Frank Hodges are long-time employees of Old Virginia, which celebrated its 100th anniversary May 17.
Hodges said everything was done by hand labor when he began working at the plant 42 years ago. Now, even all the old buildings have been replaced.
Concrete, said Hodges, who operates a power shovel in a shale pit, has replaced much of the dirt and dust at the plant.
Coal kilns have been replaced by gas-fired, continuous-tunnel kilns.
About 300 builders, architects and others in the construction industry ate barbecued chicken and inspected kilns during the plant's birthday celebration. Gil Meland, executive vice president, said he believes the company is the oldest manufacturer in the Roanoke Valley.
The operation started in boom times of the late 19th century when George Pierpont came from New England to start the Pierpont Brick Works in Salem. Henry Garden, a former owner, said five brick plants were operating in Salem in the early days.
The company was owned and operated by the Garden family for about two-thirds of the century. Henry Garden followed his uncle and his father in the management but sold the business in 1985 to Pete Groeschel, Fletcher Smoak and Meland. Two years later, that company sold Old Virginia Brick to Tarmac PLC, a British construction materials group.
The plant on West Main Street has furnished custom bricks for schools, such as the University of Virginia and Wake Forest University, and for "upscale" homes.
Bricks from the Salem plant also were used in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
by CNB