Site of Old Potter's Shop

Limestone County's pottery trade began earlier than the plaque's 1870s. The Handbook of Texas dates Alberry Johnson's shop to 1859, when good clay drew him to what was then called Pottersville. He sold in 1869 to William Knox, who moved the equipment to a site two miles west of Oletha. After the deaths of Knox's wife and son in 1872, the business passed to John Fowler. It employed as many as sixty workers and was one of the largest of its kind in Texas. Such stoneware usually traveled by wagon or rail no farther than about 100 miles.

What the plaque says

Site of Old Potter's Shop The fine, white clay mined near here was used at this shop from the 1840s to 1912 to make pitchers, jars, crocks, churns, flower pots, and ornamental urns, which were used locally and shopped out of county. In the 1870s the shop, built by Alberry Johnson, was a major industry in Pottersville (later Oletha) Wm. C. Knox later bought the plant and hired J. L. Stone as the chief artisan. John Fowler then became owner and was joined by his son E. J. Fowler about 1900. Men dug kaolin clay from pits and hauled it to the plant, where mules provided labor to grind the clay to powder and it was fashioned into ceramics. Historically, kaolin -- still mined today from the deposits nearby -- has been used to make fine porcelain and china. It ranks with gas, oil, and stone as a major commercial resource in Limestone County. During the 19th century, vast natural resources throughout the state were creating new enterprises. Cattle and cotton headed the list of products, which also included lumber, iron ore, stone, and salt, as well as finished articles such as cloth, iron kettles, soap, flour, brick, and matches. These businesses, although crude and not of the "luxury" type, initiated the industrial growth of Texas. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Fort Parker — 15 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 20 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Fort Boggy State Park — 29 mi
  A 1,847-acre park in Leon County named for a settlers' palisade of 1840, with a 15-acre lake, short trails and the story of Tennessee farmers, the Keechi and a Ranger captain.

More markers nearby

• Site of Oletha Common School — 1.4 mi
• Ebenezer Baptist Church and Cemetery — 7.6 mi
• Thornton Schools — 8.5 mi
• Bald Prairie Church of Christ — 9.9 mi