![]() ![]() Christened “New Palissy,” the studio produced some high-quality art pottery pieces. In 1888, Henri and Wilfrida Fairweather operated a crude kiln out of their studio home at 241 17th Street. The first attempt to establish a ceramic industry within the confines of the city of San Diego began three years later. ![]() However, it did manufacture some art pottery and decorative ceramic tile. Located in what is today Riverside County, EPFCCo mainly produced pipe, crockery, and refractive tile. That year the Elsinore Pottery and Fire Clay Company (EPFCCo) began manufacturing and shipping fired clay products from its plant near Lake Elsinore. The November 1885 completion of a rail link between National City and a transcontinental railroad sparked a building boom in a number of towns along its right of way. It was not until the development of San Diego’s railroad infrastructure in the mid-1880s that entrepreneurs began to exploit the regions clay resources. 1Įver since 1875, San Diegans boasted that their county would be the “pottery capital of America.” Despite this unabashed boosterism, San Diego’s nascent ceramics industry remained quiescent for the next ten years. However short-lived, CCPCo played an important part in influencing succeeding generations of California tile makers. ![]() Problems with supply and labor forced its closure in 1917. Ironically, the company did not remain in business long enough to reap the rewards of the tile’s popularity. Their utilization in two landmark San Diego buildings contributed to the popularization of the Spanish Colonial Revival movement of the 1920s. Originally established in 1911 to manufacture fine porcelain products, CCPCo earned nation-wide fame for its design and firing of brilliant, polychromatic Hispano-Mooresque-style faience tile. Among these was the California China Products Company (CCPCo) of National City. Almost every California town had its own cluster of art potteries producing local variants of ceramic tile. This was especially true during the years prior to World War I. Introduced to California by the Spanish, tile making was once prevalent throughout the state. Throughout its history, artisans, following time-honored traditions, have elevated tile making into an art form. Among these, glazed ceramic tile making, the manufacture of thin, flat slabs of vitrified clay to cover walls, floors, and roofs, is an ancient profession. The working of the earth to create useful and artistic objects is one of mankind’s oldest industries. ![]()
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