The Brick Nobody Wanted

In 2014, a demolition crew in Tacoma, Washington, pulled thousands of bricks from a condemned elementary school. Most were hauled to a landfill. But a retired mason named Gerald Hutchins loaded his truck with the discards — bricks stamped with a 1923 foundry mark that nobody else valued. His neighbors thought he'd lost his mind. Gerald spent two years cleaning those bricks by hand, chipping away old mortar with a chisel on his back porch.…