While on break from his second semester at Eckerd College, Zach Sierke found his great-grandfather’s kiln on Cowpen Creek and dug clay from the same historic veins that helped build the old community. “A lot of the clay that we have is essentially fossilized silt,” he says. The clay source of Mobile Bay and Fish River date back to the Miocene era from 5 to 23 million years ago. The massive clay tables at Fish River, coupled with its water transport access to Mobile Bay, helped create an industry for the mass-manufacturing of bricks and clay tiles, giving that area the name of Clay City. Much of Fairhope and Baldwin County were built with those orange structural clay tiles.
– from Mobile Baykeeper’s CURRENTS (Spring 2024)
