Platted in the 1840s, Built on Riverbank Clay
East and West Dundee were both platted in the early 1840s, and East Dundee incorporated in 1871, four years after West Dundee. That same year, German immigrant David Haeger became part owner of a brickyard along the Fox River that had operated since 1852, using clay dug directly from the riverbank; after the Great Chicago Fire that same year, the brickyard shipped bricks into the city to help rebuild it. The business later became Haeger Potteries, producing art pottery from 1914 and operating for 145 years, from 1871 to 2016.
A Brickyard's Clay Tells You About the Ground Underneath
A riverbank clay deposit rich enough to supply a working brickyard for over a century is also a sign of the same fine-grained, moisture-retentive soil that surrounds much of East Dundee's older housing stock, and homes built during the town's 19th-century growth predate any modern expectation of a sealed crawl space or a graded vapor barrier.
Mold Remediation Serving East Dundee
Old Brickyard Ground, Old Building Stock
In East Dundee's original riverside core, the same clay-rich ground that once fed a 145-year-old brickyard is worth checking against an older home's crawl-space and foundation drainage before assuming the source of a moisture problem.