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Gig Harbor Now and Then | Gig Harbor Clay Company, Part 3

Posted on February 9th, 2026 By: Greg Spadoni

As the third and last installment of the story of the Gig Harbor Clay Company, this week’s column follows the founder of the Gig Harbor brickyard, Albert Jonsoli, and his close friend Louis Gasloli, after they’d moved on to other things. It also ties a local family into the current use of the old brickyard site. It will make little to no sense without having read Part 1 and Part 2, so if you haven’t yet read them, please do so first.

The Italian South African Americans in Mexico

After their unsuccessful venture in the clay business in Gig Harbor, both Louis Gasloli and Albert Jonsoni moved their families to Mexico. An example of the continuing close bond between the two families happened when the Gaslolis had a third child, a girl, in January 1910. They named her Violet (1) in honor of the daughter the Jonsonis lost in 1906.

Later that year, Albert Jonsoni received word that he was wanted for a job back in Africa. He returned to the continent alone, (2) stranding the rest of his family in Mexico when he died of a heart attack while inspecting a diamond mine in Rhodesia in 1912. (3)

Albert Jonsoni in 1900. Photo provided by Dr. Randall McIntyre of Austin, Texas.

Left penniless, without a husband and father, his widow and children managed to scrape out a meager living for a time. After living in several locations in Mexico, they eventually settled in Torreón with the Gaslolis. But their timing was not good. A very serious complicating factor in their already difficult lives was the expanding Mexican Revolution. Having started in 1910, it was heading for Torreón in 1913.

The timing of their next move was better. By the time the Constitutionalists, under the command of the legendary Francisco Pancho Villa, conquered the city on Oct. 1, the Gaslolis and Jonsonis were already gone.

In June, (4) the two families were together on a train heading to the Gulf Coast, where they boarded a ship for America. Their flight to safety was not uneventful. In 2018 Dr. Randall McIntyre, the grandson of Albert Jonsoni’s youngest daughter, Sybil, said of the harrowing journey out of Mexico, “Grandmother clearly stated they left by train, were shot at, terrorized, and witnessed hangings on mail uprights for the train.”

After reaching the safety of the United States, the families settled in El Paso County, Texas. The Jonsonis, minus the late Albert Sr., made the small town of Clint, Texas, their permanent home.

The Gaslolis, however, moved one more time, back to Tacoma, in about 1918. The families stayed in touch for several more decades. The last remembered contact happened in the late 1940s, when Audree Bentzen (Audree Lewis at the time), a granddaughter of Louis Gasloli, visited the Jonsonis in Clint.

Louis and Nina Gasloli at their summer home in Burton on Vashon Island. Photo provided by Nina Kornell.

(The Jonsoni and Gasloli families’ lore each tell a tale of a personal encounter with Pancho Villa. Albert Jonsoni Jr. came within moments of being executed by a firing squad at the order of Villa. (5) The Gasloli story is a generally positive one, but with very few details.)

A new business for the old brickyard site

In 1984, Marvin Turner developed the old brickworks site into the marina that stands today, Murphy’s Landing. In 2018, he recalled that when he acquired the property several water drainage channels were lined with reject brick from the Gig Harbor Clay Company. A few of the brick were saved by several people connected to the work on the marina project. The remainder was mixed in with the excess soil as it was excavated, loaded into dump trucks, and hauled off the site. Most of them are now buried in a fill on the west side of Burnham Drive, just a short distance beyond the first roundabout when traveling north from the marina. (6)

Murphy’s Landing marina now occupies the old brickyard site. Photo by Greg Spadoni.

Spadoni Brothers, Inc., of Gig Harbor did the excavation, backfill, and paving of the former brickyard, dance hall, and log dump site. They knew very well of the brickyard having been there.

Though all four brothers were born after the Gig Harbor Clay Co. folded, Julius, Roy, Claude, and Rudy had heard the story of the ill-fated business from their father, who had been a brick maker at a different yard at the same time. He told his sons that the Gig Harbor brickyard had brought in a man to help solve their quality problems, and that man later worked at the Far West Clay Company.

The Spadoni connection

Michele Spadoni came to America from Italy in 1903. He worked his way west from Chicago over the next several years and ended up in Clay City in East Pierce County, sometime before 1908. There, he worked in the brick factory of the Far West Clay Co. In 1910, when George Beam arrived from Gig Harbor as the new manager, Spadoni was still there.

In July 1912, The Clay-Worker reported that Beam, “who has been superintendent of the Far West Clay Company at Clay City, has resigned his position and moved with his family to Gig Harbor, where he will try the farming business for a while.” (7) They had moved back to their house in the Woodworth Addition, on Peacock Hill.

Beam didn’t stick with farming, assuming he ever tried it. In 1913 he was working in Vancouver, B.C., (8) in Bellingham in 1914, (9) and in 1918 he was employed by the Harper Brick & Tile Company in Kitsap County, a dozen or so miles north of Gig Harbor. (10)

Michele Spadoni quit the Far West Clay Co. and briefly moved his expanding family to Tacoma in 1914, taking a job at the ore smelter in Ruston. In 1915, they moved to a rental house at the north end of Gig Harbor before buying property in Shore Acres, south of Gig Harbor.

Michele Spadoni and his wife Anita moved their family to Gig Harbor in 1915. Photo from the Claude M. Spadoni Collection.

When George Beam arrived at the Far West Clay Co. in 1910, he no doubt told his new coworkers, including Spadoni, about his experiences in the Gig Harbor brickyard, and in 1912 it would’ve been common knowledge of his intention to move back there. Perhaps that’s what led Spadoni to look at Gig Harbor as a possible place to raise his family. If so, the Gig Harbor Clay Company is indirectly responsible for the Spadoni family coming to Gig Harbor.

Several bits of circumstantial evidence furthers the idea of George Beam having introduced the Spadonis to Gig Harbor. In the 19-teens, after moving away for a job elsewhere, Beam rented out his house on Peacock Hill. The Spadoni family is known to have first lived in Gig Harbor in a rented house in approximately the same location.

Did the Spadoni family first live in George Beam’s house when they moved to Gig Harbor? Compelling circumstantial evidence suggests they did. Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer aerial base map.

A mere month after the Spadonis bought a building lot in Shore Acres, south of Gig Harbor, in 1919, (11) George Beam sold his rental house in the Woodworth Addition. (12)

Circumstantial evidence is not proof, of course, but lacking definitive facts, it must be considered.

A hill of several names

The knob of land that includes the Murphy’s Landing and West Shore marinas, now known as Clay Hill, has had several unofficial names over the years. The previous ones evolved as the memory of the brick venture faded with the passing of the local residents who had witnessed its struggle and ultimate failure. To that generation it had two other names. Mostly known as Brickyard Hill, (13) it was often called Mud Hill (14) during wet weather, until the road crossing it, informally called the Brickyard Hill Highway (it was a state highway at the time), was paved with concrete in late 1920. (15)

A marina with two names

In addition to Murphy’s Landing, there is one more name attached to that part of the old brickyard property today. In recognition of his friendliness, humor, integrity, and wise guidance while working with the developers of the marina, Marvin and Janet Turner, the couple dedicated the public boardwalk running the length of the property’s shoreline to the memory of Julius Spadoni.

The public boardwalk through Murphy’s Landing marina is named after Julius Spadoni, who passed away before the marina was completed.

Next time

Feb. 23 will see the return of the Gig Harbor Now and Then Item of Mystery. No, not Item of Mystery No. 1. That one was too tough. Super cool, but too tough. Instead, Item of Mystery No. 2 will make its debut. It’s not nearly as tough, but it’s just tough enough to be interesting. And, if nobody correctly identifies it within a month, its identity will be revealed on March 23.

Also in the next column will be a preview of coming attractions — or detractions, depending on how it’s received.

— Greg Spadoni, February 9, 2026

Footnotes

Violet Gasloli Santino death certificate, January, 1989, Washington state file number 9 08620.
List of British passengers on the HMS Kinfauns Castle (Jonsoni apparently never completed his application for U.S citizenship), destination Capetown, South Africa; departed Southhampton, England 9-4-1910 (in Britain that would be the 9th of April). It is possible he made more than one trip from Mexico to Africa.
Note written on the back of a 1900 family photo by Sybil Jonsoni Ludlow.
The Copper Era and Morenci Leader, Clifton, Arizona, June 20, 1913, Page 7.
“Woman recalls brother’s brush with Villa,” The El Paso Herald-Post, October 18, 1982, page 10.
Greg Spadoni’s personal knowledge from having taken part in the hauling of the excavated material.
The Clay Worker, July, 1912, page 74, column 2.
The News Tribune (as The Tacoma Daily News), March 29, 1913, page 5.
The News Tribune (as The Tacoma Daily News), June 20, 1914, page 9.
William Frank Beam’s WW1 draft card listing George Beam as nearest relative, in Harper, Wash.
Deed, Pierce County Auditor’s Fee No. 538625, dated July 23, 1919, recorded October 8, 1919, Grantees Mike Spadoni and Anita Spadoni.
Deed, Pierce County Auditor’s Fee No. 547378, dated October 31, 1919, recorded January 12, 1920, Grantors Mrs. Mary Beam and G. W. Beam.
Bay-Island News, December 3, 1920.
Bay-Island News, December 3, 1920.
Bay-Island News, December 3, 1920.