Blue Ridge Pottery

Before it was Blue Ridge, the factory's ware was called Clinchfield, and its letterhead claimed that Clinchfield on china was like sterling on silver. Founder E. J. Owens brought skilled workers from Ohio, where the china boom had ended after 1910, and the new railway could carry the dishes to department stores. The growth came after 1938, when decals gave way to painting under the glaze, making Southern Potteries the nation's largest hand-painted maker in the 1940s. Plastics and Japanese imports ended it by 1957.

What the plaque says

Blue Ridge Pottery Beginning operations in 1917, Southern Potteries, Inc. was fostered by the Carolina, Clinchfield, and Ohio Railroad. For many years, it was one of the nation's largest producers of hand-painted-under-the-glaze pottery, sold under the name "Blue Ridge". Located on Watauga Avenue, the factory hired hundreds of local artists to paint the pottery. Department stores had their own designs, and breakfast cereals offered starter sets. In January of 1957, the board of directors voted to close the pottery. Collectors still seek out examples of this pottery from Erwin's past.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Unicoi County Heritage Museum and the Erwin Rail Yard — 2.0 mi
  A museum in the old fish hatchery superintendent's house in Erwin, a Clinchfield railroad town where the elephant Mary was hanged in 1916 and Black residents were driven out in 1918.
• Jonesborough Historic District — 11 mi
  Tennessee's oldest town, chartered in 1779, where Elihu Embree printed The Emancipator in 1820 and a hay wagon by the courthouse started the National Storytelling Festival in 1973.
• Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park — 16 mi
  A shoal on the Watauga River where the Transylvania Company bought about 20 million acres from the Cherokee in March 1775, Dragging Canoe refused, and the Overmountain Men mustered in 1780.
• Roan Mountain and Carvers Gap — 17 mi
  The saddle on the Tennessee-North Carolina line where the Appalachian Trail crosses the Roan Highlands' grass balds, with Catawba rhododendron gardens, rare spruce-fir forest and the site of the Cloudland Hotel.

More markers nearby

• Unicoi County / Town of Erwin — steps away
• Battle of Red Banks — 2.3 mi
• Keystone Pottery — 5.1 mi
• Camp Cordell Hull — 5.4 mi