My plans for the day immediately changed when I happened to drive through Clear Springs and noticed they were tearing down an old house. A closer inspection and a phone call later and I was busy salvaging these homemade cinder blocks. They caught my eye because they were made to look like stone yet they were concrete. I thought pretty cool and old and I need border material for my garden. It turns out that they were quiet heavy which put by back to the test but I managed to haul off 44 of them(70 lbs each) plus 8 corner L-shaped pieces which were even heavier.
With the hauling behind me, I decide to do some research on this type of construction... One thing led to another and I found that on-site concrete cinder block construction began in 1905 with a patent of the first easy to use reusable mold. It turns out that the cinder blocks that I salvaged were popularized in 1917 when Sears mailed out a special catalog that advertised the mold. Sears advertised that the mold produced concrete cinder blocks that were (1)Fire Resistant, (2)less expensive to lay than brick, and (3) the blocks imitate quarried stone. On-site concrete cinder block construction remained in use until the late 1920s.
Too bad that the old house had to be torn down, but I will put these blocks to good use.
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