Millikan Masonry

About Millikan Masonry

Brick keeps its own record of a winter: you can read where water got in, froze, and pushed, in the fine lines along a mortar joint. Millikan Masonry, a masonry outfit in Urbana, spends the cold months keeping that water moving instead of standing — plowing drives and lots, shoveling steps, stoops and walks, and salting the shaded runs that never quite dry out in February. A stone step cleared early is a step that does not wear a crust of ice for the rest of the week. The work is unglamorous and exact, much like laying courses: straight lines, clean edges, nothing left half-done. When the thaw finally arrives, the walk is just a walk again, and the brick is none the worse for the season.