How are adobe bricks made? This account from 1883 explains the old process perfectly.
Making Adobes
Monday morning we drove down to see them making adobes. They make an “acequai” by drawing the water through a ditch from the creek to where the adobes are to be made. This water, clay and chopped hay form the adobe material. The workers presented a picturesque appearance, the red handkerchiefs bound about their foreheads contrasting with their bronzed skins, glittering eyes and dark hair. They wore gray colored shirts and pants that might have been white at the embarkation of Noah’s ark. They were rolled high above the knees. Two of the men stood knee deep in the mud, with which they loaded an oblong litter, trotting with it to a man on the hill above, who molded the bricks. He had a hollow rectangular frame, three inches in depth and divided in the center. Placing this on the ground he filled it with mud from the litter, smoothed the mud even at the top, and raising the litter left two bricks on the ground, while the two men trotted back and again loaded the litter. After these adobes dry on the top they are turned sideways to harden in the sun.
At night they are carefully covered with tarpaulin, in case of rain, which destroys them if it falls before they are hardened.
The Mexicans, in building their houses, hollow out a place in front of the building, where the “acequai” is formed to make the adobe, and when the house is finished, use this hollow for debris.
Source: Daily Evening Bulletin newspaper. March 30, 1883.
