Blue Ridge Pottery - An American Classic

In 1917 the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railroad founded Clinchfield Pottery in Erwin, Tennessee. Potters were imported from Ohio and welcomed by a throng of Erwin's 300 residents. In 1920 the Clinchfield Pottery became Southern Potteries, Inc. (S.P.I.). By 1938 S.P.I. had evolved a product line which was marked Blue Ridge Pottery. Each fresh, colorful piece was hand painted by a team of local women. Most patterns featured colorful arrays of flowers or fruit.
Blue Ridge became quite popular. In its heyday, S.P.I. employed around 1,000 people, producing some 24 million pieces annually in somewhere between 2,500 to 3,000 patterns. But by 1957 Southern Potteries found itself fighting for market share with competition from plastic dinnerware and Japanese imports. The stockholders voted to close the factory down.
Many people know Blue Ridge because of its Quaker Apple pattern (bottom right photo), a premium that could be ordered from Quaker Oats boxes. Even the boxes with the Quaker Apple offer are sought after by today

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