When you are driving, take a look at the houses and other buildings you pass. Bricks are used in the construction of virtually every structure.

Bricks are laid into building foundations, walls, chimneys, walkways, patios, planters, and garden walls, to name a few of the many uses. They come in as many colors, sizes, and shapes as you can imagine. On a typical brick wall, bricks make up about 70 percent of the wall. Mortar is the other component. Mortar also comes in many colors and can completely change the look of the brick.

In Van Wyck, just down the road from Fort Mill, it is hard to miss the huge plant owned by Boral Bricks. It is the largest facility in Van Wyck and one of the primary sources of bricks used between Columbia and Charlotte.

The brick plant in Van Wyck, still called the Ashe Plant by most people in the area, traces its beginning back to 1906. It was founded by William Newton Ashe, who started making bricks by hand on his father's farm in McConnellsville, S.C. The plant was purchased by Boral, an Australian company, in 1986.

According to Mike Kuvinka, manager of the Ashe plant, the two Carolinas together form a region that produces the most bricks in the United States. This region is also the largest consumer of bricks in the country.

Boral is the largest brick producer in the United States. As part of the Boral effort, the 90 employees at the Ashe plant produce between 75 million and 90 million bricks per year. A constant stream of large trucks -- empty trucks coming in and full trucks leaving -- is common at the plant. They also ship bricks by rail, about 12 carloads per week, on the average.

Two basic types of bricks are produced at the Ashe plant, extruded bricks and wood-molded bricks. Extruded bricks are recognized by three holes in the brick. Wood-molded bricks are solid, with indentations called "frogs" replacing the holes. The holes and frogs help the bricks dry, and they reduce production cost.

Most brick plants are located near the source of raw materials and near the area where the bricks are sold. This is to hold down the shipping costs. The Ashe plant makes bricks out of clay and shale, two components that are common in the Carolinas.

Bricks have been a building material for thousands of years. In some countries, bricks are often made by hand from mud and straw, then left in the sun to dry. But this is not exactly how the process works in Van Wyck.

First, mountains of dirt are ground and sifted to make a uniform mixture of clay and shale. The ground mixture passes through an eight-mesh sieve, meaning eight holes per square inch. Water is then added to prepare the mixture for brick making.

Extruded bricks have about 12 percent moisture in the mix. Wood-molded bricks have about 30 percent moisture. In some ways, the process of making bricks starts like a child making mud pies.

For extruded bricks, the mixture is pressed out into long "slugs" that are trimmed to the size of the raw brick and covered with a coating of river-bottom sand for color. The slug is then cut into individual bricks that are stacked for drying. Three rods form the three holes as the slug is pressed out of the machine.

For a wood-molded brick, the mixture is pressed into a set of wooden molds by a machine and trimmed across the top. The sand coating is applied to the mold before the mixture goes in, and the frogs are formed by shapes in the molds. The molded bricks are dumped out of the molds onto large boards and moved to the dryer.

Bricks must be dried before they are fired in the kiln. Drying is simply the process used to remove the excess moisture from the bricks. Dryers operate at relatively low temperatures, about 250-300 degrees Fahrenheit.

The dried bricks are then moved into the kiln for firing. Firing cooks the bricks at temperatures that can exceed 2,000 degrees. This hardens the bricks so that they can be used for construction and will not be damaged by weather.

After firing and cooling, the bricks are stacked and packaged for shipping. It takes about one week for a brick to travel from its birth in a pile of dirt to a shipping pallet.

As Kuvinka says, "We can easily make a brick that has perfectly square edges and flat sides, but most people want bricks with texture or bricks that look old. So we rough-up the bricks to please the customer."

With about 90 million bricks going out this year, they must be making the customer happy.

Bill Henson is a technical writer and marketing copywriter living in Rock Hill. You can reach him by e-mail at writer@cetlink.net.