Nelson Mackey (1825-1898), founder of the Texas-based Mackey Brick Company, was born Nelson Mackey Laraway in Catskill, New York, and grew up in the Hudson Valley, where the name Mackey was synonymous with brick manufacturing. After business ventures in Iowa and Illinois, he came to the San Antonio area in the late 1870s and by the 1880s began investing in a brick manufacturing company that became one of the most successful in the state. In 1887, he and several partners acquired land around Calaveras, setting aside 150 acres to mine clay for brick making while the remaining acreage supplied the 30,000 cords of wood needed to fire kilns. Employees could live on-site in company housing and were paid in tokens redeemable at the company store. The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad created the Mackey spur to pick up bricks on-site, and with transportation readily available, Mackey bricks were shipped across southern Texas. The buff-colored bricks were used in downtown San Antonio businesses and in projects including the foundation of the Federal Building, an addition to the Menger Hotel, and the Vance Building, and they were also used outside San Antonio. In 1891, the Southwest Texas State Lunatic Asylum was built with seven million Mackey bricks, which Mackey said would have reached from San Antonio to Chicago if lined end-to-end. In 1889, the company added Tile to its name and began producing red clay pipe from a quarry south of San Antonio. Fierce competition from south Texas and Mexican brick companies led to decline by the late 1890s. Mackey died in 1898 and was buried in Perry, Iowa.