Editorâs Note: This is the 375th in a series of articles recalling vanished Huntington scenes.
In her âThe Lost Village of Barboursville,â historian Jeanette M. Rowsey writes that âeven before the Civil War small brick-making plants had lined the Guyandotte River.â An abundance of natural gas to heat the furnaces and thick layers of clay between the local topsoil and the bedrock âprovided the raw material for a very good grade of red building brick.â
Many of the stately homes erected in Barboursvilleâs earliest years were built from locally produced brick.
In 1904, Barboursville businessman George Thornburg opened a large modern brick factory on the villageâs Peyton Street. Thornburgâs brickyard was named either the Guyan Valley Brick Company or the Barboursville Brick Company (sources differ). It produced 75 types and colors of brick and tile from a thick deposit of gray sandy shale and sandy river clay.