Red Wing’s First Industrialized Pottery
Influenced by the the work of “Mssrs. Hallam’s (sic),” and believing that a stoneware pottery company could be successful in Red Wing if backed by sufficient capital to compete successfully, local businessman C.C. Webster called together a group of citizens early in 1877 to consider the idea. The Red Wing Stoneware Company was incorporated on February 9th that year, with an investment of $25,000 in stock. By January of 1878 they had built and equipped a 40 x 70 foot brick building and attendant structures along West Main Street, at the outskirts of town.
The company found immediate success, beginning with two up-draft kilns fired with wood and coal. Four lathes, or potter’s wheels, turned out 1000 gallons of ware per day. Three presses were employed in making milk pans (shouldered bowls used for holding milk until the cream could rise to the surface to be decanted off for making butter or cheese). They used clay hauled in by horse carts from deposits near the Town of Goodhue, roughly 12 miles to the south. Their output included jars, jugs, churns, water coolers, milk pans and other “useful and beautiful wares,” glazed with salt-glaze and Albany slip. In total, $40,257 worth of business, from the production of 270,00 gallons of ware had been conducted in their first year.
Just five years later, the Red Wing Stoneware Company’s ware was preferred by dealers in their sales area over the respected Ohio product. It became obvious that the market could support a second company on the same scale. In 1883, the Minnesota Stoneware Company was incorporated by local interests. Starting a new company afforded the opportunity to not only use experience already gained, but to introduce new technology in the form of the first down-draft kilns used in the Northwest, and an improvement that was quickly duplicated by the older firm because of their superior uniformity in producing salt-glazed stoneware.
On Saturday, February 16, 1884, a fire began in the kiln shed of the newly installed down-draft kiln of the Red Wing Stoneware Company, and destroyed the shop, warehouse and clay shed. The Board of Directors decided to rebuild on a larger and improved scale. The new shop was 65 x 150 ft., and two stories throughout, with three down-draft kilns for stoneware and one up-draft kiln for flowerpots. There were now a total of 18 turner’s wheels and three jollies for molding milk pans and flowerpots at the daily rate of 1200 per machine; double the previous capacity. In 1888, the state geologist reported that the Red Wing plants were the largest stoneware produces in the nation.
With their new factory. the Red Wing Stoneware Company soon regained their production lead over the Minnesota Stoneware Co, which they held until about 1889 when the younger company pulled ahead for good. In 1891, sewer pipe became another facet of the local clay industry as the Red Wing Sewer Pipe Company was created at the spot which had been the location of Wm Philleo’s 2nd site. The president of Red Wing Stoneware Company, opened the John H. Rich Sewer Pipe Works along Featherstone Road in 1893. Devoting his time and capital to the sewer pipe firm removed Rich as a driving force for RWSCo’s growth. The introduction of a third stoneware factory in 1892, the North Star Stoneware Company, plus the financial Panic of 1893 further dissuaded growth of the older company. The expanded 1884 shop was itself consumed by fire in February, 1900, but was promptly rebuilt.
White-glaze began to replace salt-glazing beginning in 1895 and machines were introduced to turn large ware which had previously required hand-turning shortly before 1900. In 1906, The company was formally merged with MSCo. to become factory “R” of the Red Wing Union Stoneware Company.
