“Adobe Brick Making” – a special outreach event

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Adobe structure remains, often referred to as “Adobe Town,” in Green River, 1871. Visible in the background at the photograph’s extreme left is the Overland Stage Station on the opposite bank of the river, the current site of the Wyoming Game & Fish Department building on Astle Avenue. Mansface is visible on the photograph’s right. 

Wyo4news Staff, [email protected] [PRESS RELEASE]

SWEETWATER COUNTY, WYOMING — The Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River is hosting another hands-on, family-friendly event in July: Adobe Brick Making.

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Adobe – actually sun-dried brick – is among the oldest and most common building materials in history, particularly in hot, arid areas like Mexico and the American Southwest. Traditionally, adobe bricks are not kiln-fired. Clay, water, and often grass or straw are mixed together by hand and pressed into wooden molds to form the wet bricks, which are then set out to be dried by the sun. Once dry, the bricks are used to construct walls; laid, historically, with mud mortar. Adobe construction techniques in North America going back to the 16th century changed very little over time.

Children and caregivers attending the event will make their own small adobe bricks, then add them to an ongoing tabletop structure, making playing in the mud an educational exercise!

Adobe played its part in Sweetwater County’s history. In 1862, the Overland Stage Station in Green River was built at the site now occupied by the Wyoming Game & Fish Department building on Astle Avenue. In short order, a cluster of adobe structures sprang up on the other side of the river, which were still there when the first John Wesley Powell expedition and its boats arrived in 1869 by means of the brand-new Transcontinental Railroad. Frederick Dellenbaugh, the expedition artist, described them as “…a group of roofless adobe ruins when this place had been the terminus of the line during building operations.”

“Adobe Brick Making” is set to begin at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 27, outside the museum at 3 E. Flaming Gorge Way in Green River. The public is invited, and there is no charge for attendance.

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