It’s light shown only briefly
Prospects were promising in 1892, when the backers of a third stoneware factory announced its formation on March 15th. It’s owners were once again well known in the Red Wing business community, and $100,000 in capital stock was issued, roughly twice the investment in either of the two existing firms. The works began production in November that same year in a three-story, brick building of 62 x 210 feet, located within sight of the other two plants on West Main Street. It started with 6 kilns and plans for more to be added as needed.
The following year the national economy crashed in “The Panic of 1893.” Commercial and industrial production declined, workers were laid off and markets dried up. The three local stoneware makers combining their sales and marketing efforts into a single entity, which they named The Union Stoneware Company. Shares of incoming orders would be divided among the firms based upon their respective market shares in the previous year. MSCo. held 42%, RWSCo had 34%, which left North Star with 24%. The provisions of the Union Stoneware Co. by-laws limited North Star’s growth potential, discouraging shareholders. In the Fall of 1896, seven eighths of their capital stock was bought up by the owners of the other two firms, who stripped the factory of its equipment and sold the building to a buyer who converted it into a malting operation; a use at which it operated until the 1980s.
Examples of North Star products are not as easy to find as those of the same era from the other Red Wing companies. Although no examples of North Star pieces with impressed side-stamps have been found, many molded pieces had five-pointed stars, sometimes plain, and other times including “N,O,R,T,H” letters in the starpoints, and rarely, including “Red Wing, Minn.” On their bottoms. There were, however other stoneware potteries with “Star” in their name, or who used stars in their logos.
A large cache of shards were uncovered when the old North Star factory building was razed in 1994, providing collectors a brief opportunity to sort through them and find provenance for pieces that didn’t bear evidence of manufacturer by way of a definitive stamped or molded identification.
