Construction Crews Discover Thousands Of Old Bricks Underground In Downtown Tulsa

Construction crews working downtown made a historic discovery while doing street repair work.

They found about 10,000 old bricks underground.

The Crossland Heavy crews said some of the bricks are crumbling, but said of the roughly 10,000 they discovered, they should be able to recover about 7,000 of them.

As construction crews worked to make some repairs on MLK Boulevard near Cameron, it was history they bumped into while digging through the dirt.

“We haven't really found anything too crazy but the bricks are probably the coolest thing,” Crossland Heavy Employee Michael McBride said.

McBride said he and his team are collecting the bricks and loading them up on pallets for now. It's unclear what will happen to them next.

"They all say, ‘Coffeyville,’ so they're made in Coffeyville, Kansas, so they're probably early 1900s, maybe,” he said.

The Tulsa Historical Society said while it does not have information about Coffeyville bricks, they have done quite a bit of research on bricks labeled "Tulsa," and even have some in collections.

Some have a backward "S,” a unique piece of Tulsa history.

The historical society said Tulsa's first brick plant began production in 1903.

The historical society pointed to an old newspaper clipping from the Tulsa Democrat in 1904, announcing stone and brick sidewalks are coming to the business district that are "permanent and substantial."

While these newly discovered bricks are likely from our neighbors in Kansas, they have been under our roads for decades, now exposed to the 21st century.

"It's pretty cool because you gotta think, when these guys were putting these bricks in, however long ago, they probably never thought that they'd be getting dug up by probably generations of people later,” McBride said.

The City of Tulsa did not immediately respond to a request for information about what could happen next to these thousands of old bricks.