Historic Bremen

The 2020 road work on SR 106 thru Bremen and related street work on Center Street has revealed the original brick paving on Bremen’s main streets.

In 1911, the town began to consider the need to pave its streets, as was being done in some nearby towns. There was a building boom in Bremen at the time, and nearly all of the existing brick business buildings been completed, several just between 1910 and 1912.

By 1913, the decision was made made to pave the streets–altho many residents were skeptical of the idea of adding a sewer system at the same time. After all, they’d lived their whole lives with outhouses; where would they even put a toilet inside their homes?

But in the end, the first two blocks of Plymouth St and the Center St to the railroad tracks got paved with vitreous brick pavers, and a sewer system went in–all in four months. Parts of South St and Mill St as well as additional blocks of Plymouth St were planned immediately, but wrangling over the bidding process delayed the work until 1915.

You can browse the news clippings and photos below using the back and next arrows or click an image to go to its Flickr page.

Then in 1938, the state decided to pave US 6 (now SR 106) with asphalt, and the bricks were covered up for nearly 90 years. Part of the brick remained exposed on S Center streets until about 1980.

When the street work is completed, the bricks will be gone, and the street surface will be lowered more than a foot, returning the town to a time when the streets had tall curbs capable of keeping storm water out of the business blocks.

Interested persons will be able to get some of the approximately 2 million old bricks at the Bremen town dump for free. We at Historic Bremen hope to see them used as garden walks, planter bases, sidewalk elements, etc. all around town.

You can browse the news clippings and photos below using the back and next arrows or click an image to go to its Flickr page.