Jennifer Jacula Photography

Yep – you guessed it – I’m still working on the restoration project! The last of the junk will be going out the door in the next few days and then the real work can begin.

One of the many, many issues that needs to be addressed is the crumbling masonry of the chimneys. But – like with so many things I’m discovering with this project – there’s a history behind the brick.

A few of the bricks have fallen off and hit the ground, so I picked one up. I was hoping that it would prove to be a Vermilion brick – nearby Vermilion, Alberta once had a booming brick factory and many local buildings showcase the local brick.

My brick, though, was stamped “I-XL” – and a little google search lead me to this Medicine Hat, Alberta company, which has been in existence since 1886! In 1921, the Medicine Hat Brick Co. began stamping the I-XL into every brick. The letters, meaning simply “I excel,” are located in the depression of the brick, known as the frog.

To learn more about I-XL, you can visit their website at http://www.ixlbrick.com – it’s a neat little insight into a piece of Alberta’s history!

(A bit of research into the Vermilion brick factory tells me that it operated from 1906-1914, so my mental timeline was off.)

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Tags: studio restoration

This entry was posted by Jennifer on Friday, April 16th, 2010 at 12:45 am and is filed under studio restoration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.