07/26/2026
In 1870, Horace Fowle and Horace Wells joined to run the brickyard at the mouth of Oak Creek, as clay from the Lake Michigan bluffs fired into the cream-colored bricks, which were a very popular building material in the area. Related immigrants from England, John Fowle, a miller; Joseph Dibley, a carpenter turned farmer; and William Sivyer, a stone mason, worked together. Sivyer carved the millstone and stayed with the Fowles the first winter, while Dibley worked for Solomon Juneau as a carpenter for three years before buying a farm at the north end of Grant Park. Sivyer’s last job before he retired was to build St. John’s Cathedral in Milwaukee of Cream City brick.
