Blue Ridge (dishware)

Well known in their day for their underglaze decoration and colorful patterns, Blue Ridge pieces are now popular items with collectors of antique dishware.

Although Southern Potteries eventually employed over 1,000 workers and had gained a foothold in major markets across the United States, the company was unable to overcome the onset of plastic dinnerware in the 1950s.

In an attempt to encourage industry along this line, they sold several acres of land along what is now Ohio Avenue in Erwin to several investors for the establishment of a pottery.

The kaolinite and feldspar deposits in the adjacent hills made Erwin an ideal place for the manufacture of ceramics, and the pottery plant was likely in operation by late 1916.

[2] The plant initially had seven beehive kilns— four for glaze and decorator firing, and three for biscuit firing— and was surrounded by approximately forty houses for company employees.

[1] The earliest dishware produced at the Erwin plant consisted of gold-trimmed, decal-decorated dishes stamped under the name "Clinchfield Potteries."

The plant employed 300 workers in 1940 and its dishware was being marketed in showrooms across the country, including storefronts at Chicago's Merchandise Mart and on Fifth Avenue in New York.

[1] Imports returned in the early 1950s, however, and the rising popularity of plastic dinnerware began to take a toll on Southern Pottery's profits.

Others were cast for holloware (e.g. bowls, cups, pitchers), wherein the slip was poured into a plaster of Paris mold for shaping, fired in a 65-foot (20 m) pusher kiln, and sent to the finishing department for stamping, decorating, and glazing.

The painters usually consisted of a team of three or four [4] who applied the pattern with brushes, sponges or rollers[4] before glazing the ware and subjecting it to a second firing.

In the early 1980s, the Blue Ridge Collectors Club was formed in Erwin, and began documenting the 4,000 or so patterns used by Southern Potteries over the years.