Article Contributed on: 6/24/2009 10:01:45 PM
For the past few weeks workers of Rocky Mountain Building Restoration have been piecing back together the ruins of the historic Cambria Lime Kiln, along the Kinney Run Trail in the Tripp Ranch area of southwestern Golden. This historic kiln, a final remnant Golden's renowned brickmaking industry and prominent lime industry, was built in 1879 to serve the Cambria Brick & Tile Company being set up in Golden.
Owned by a group of Texas capitalists led by
John C. Hodges Jr.,, the Cambria plant at what would now be the eastern 1300 block of the now vacated East Street was a major industrial facility in Golden, including a 2-story 30x125-foot stone main building with twin brick kilns and 75-foot-tall smokestacks and employing 24 men.
Cambria manufactured fire brick, pressed brick, terra cotta, tile, lime, jars, crocks, jugs, urns, flower pots, vases, spittoons, hanging baskets, statuary, fountains, and stoneware. It could supply brick of various sizes and colors including octagon or square brick, black, cream or red colored, red or cream pressed bricks for building facades, and fire backs for locomotives. It was the first such plant in Golden to offer a diverse variety of masonry building materials, and was one of the largest and most productive plants of Golden's famed brickmaking industry, using local clays for its products.
This lime kiln was the first structure built by the Cambria company, in 1879. Lime was important to the success of their plant, providing raw material for making cement which could be used with brick construction. It was also important for use in fluxing smelter furnaces. The kiln was built of stone quarried from its vicinity, with bricks manufactured by the Golden City Fire Brick Works where the new Mines soccer field is now. The kiln's capacity when operational was 140 bushels of lime per day. A coal-fueled fire was kept constantly going in the base of the kiln with the aid of a bellows in back, while lime was loaded from above onto its interior shelving over the fire. The limestone, quarried nearby, was heated to a very high temperature, burning out impurities and turning it to quicklime, the pure product that could be put to industrial use.
The Kinney Run Trail route already existed at this time as the historic wagon road originally built by the St. Vrain, Golden City & Colorado company 150 years ago this year in 1859. A railroad spur was built along this route to serve the kiln, and doubtless also the Cambria clay quarries which long operated where the Laramie Building of the Jefferson County Government Center is now.
Cambria continued for some years making material for any number of area places and households. Hodges had to let go of the Cambria plant in 1892 after he became ill in health, and it was sold to the Western Pipe & Brick Company. By 1896 the plant had shut down, for reasons not currently known. It then stood idle for nearly 30 years, and was briefly revived in 1924 by the Owl Brick & Tile Company led by
Jerome Weisman, manufacturing building and fire brick and flooring and roofing tile. At this time the kiln was likely already falling into ruin and not used, and the works vanished to the ages when the final remains were destroyed when Coors annexed the land in the mid-20th Century.
The kiln remained a relic on the Tripp Ranch for many years, until coming into ownership of the City of Golden with the Kinney Run Trail. The City is funding the $30,000-$50,000 restoration project, which has been of great urgency due to the kiln's advanced deterioration and collapse of its front arch sometime between the summers of 1994 and 1995. Today it has been fully excavated, its mortar repointed with cement cap, rear arch restored and front arch rebuilt, restored up to the chimney which has no known historical documentation to reconstruct. The Cambria Lime Kiln has been restored just in time for its 130th anniversary this August to September, and with the newly exterior restored Brickyard House is one of the final pieces from Golden's proud century-long brickmaking industry.