The big business of bricks

Bricks once meant big bucks in Columbia, Missouri. In 1908, The Edwards Brick Co., invested $50,000 — $1.3 million in 2012 purchasing power according to MeasuringWorth.com — and employed 40 men, producing 25,000 paving bricks a day. The big buck investment was cited in Brick, Vol. 29, published in October 1908. By the time the…

Women’s hidden history on Columbia’s Hitt St.

Women architects aren’t news today, but in the 1920s, they were. Yet, few people realize one of the state’s first women architects designed two well-known apartment buildings here in Columbia, the Belvedere at 206 Hitt St., and the Beverly at 211 Hitt St. Nelle E. Peters was the architect of the both of these 1927…