Hogue Pottery
By Sam Ferguson, Production Manager, East Texas Journal
Hogue Pottery – The last Hogue Pottery was built in Mt. Pleasant about 1921 by James C. Hogue, located on Industrial Boulevard. where the Sweet Shop USA is now.
In 1865 Jeremiah S. Hogue established a pottery plant in Titus County at Gray Rock and then moved it to Winfield in 1884. He employed fifteen to twenty people mining clay, making pottery and tile for wells, says Traylor Russell’s, History of Titus County.
Born in Arkansas in 1847, Mr. Hogue’s sister Sarah lived in Titus County when he was discharged from the Confederate army at Marshall. He came here in the fall of 1865.
In 1874 Jeremiah S. Hogue was married in Titus county, Texas, to Miss Belle Hanks, a daughter of James and Caroline Hanks, of Marshall. The only child of Mr. and Mrs. Hogue was a son, James C. Hogue, of Winnsboro, a prominent pottery manufacturer of that place. He married Maggie Killingsworth and was the father of three children, Howard, Mabel and Lois.
Jeremiah S. Hogue opened the deposit of fire clay, out of which immense quantities of brick were subsequently made and out of which crocks, jars and jugs, whose capacity would aggregate millions of gallons. His first move was to put in a one wheel factory and engage a potter. He himself learned the trade under various experienced potters whom he employed at the works, and for several years he sold his product to local consumers. His growth to an eight wheel shop was slow and gradual, being reached after 25 years of steady business activity. In 1900 he sold the plant, which was incorporated as the Winfield Pottery Company, with a capital of $30,000, and was known as one of the few potteries of Texas, said A History of Texas and Texans, by Frank Johnson, 1914.
With proceeds from the sale of his factory, Mr. Hogue bought cotton fields in Winfield that he turned into peach orchards.
“In 1912, his farm produced nine rail cars of fruit from fine orchards of 2,000 Elberta peach trees, 1,400 Arpbeauty, 1,000 Slappys and 350 Early Wheelers,” Mr. Johnson reported in the 1916 account.
James C. Hogue moved his Hogue Pottery Company from Winnsboro to Mt. Pleasant in 1921 in order to be closer to its raw products which were principally found a few miles north of the town.
“That pottery was one of the largest in the state and its products were retailed to all portions of the southwest. The plant was run by six to ten men and had a production of containers with total volume of 200,000 gallons yearly. The Titus County clay that was used by this plant could be subject to a higher heat than any found throughout the southwest, thereby giving the finished product a tighter and firmer body. All the equipment in this enterprise is modern and as good as may be found anywhere in this part of the nation,” said Howard E. Hogue, plant owner and operator. As reported in a master thesis by N. C. Russell.
In 1906 James C. Hogue patented a churn cover, arranged to prevent undue splashing of the milk through the dasher-stem opening and to allow convenient removal of the cover for examining the progress of churning and to permit of stacking the covers during the process of burning in a kiln.
A headline from the MP Daily Times, July, 1926 says, “Inquires About A Brick Plant.” A Marshall firm, which operates one of the biggest brick plants in the State, has written the Mt. Pleasant Chamber of Commerce to arrange for the shipment of a carload of Titus County clay to be used as a test to determine whether or not it will pay to work the clay beds of the county in the operation of a brick plant. There are many kinds of fire and pottery clay in Titus County and the location and railroad facilities of Mt. Pleasant would make it an ideal location for a brick factory.
Classified clipping from the Naples Monitor, October 1927. “I have a large stock of grade #1 flower pots, churns, jugs and jars on hand now at 20 cents per gallon. Also have large stock of #2 lard jars and churns. Guaranteed to hold lard or anything else as good as the grade #1, for 8 cents per gallon. I also have 600 pieces of vases to paint and a large stock of yard vases, bird baths and hanging baskets, the nicest and largest stock we have ever had since I came to Mt. Pleasant. J. C. Hogue, The Hogue Pottery.”
On December 8, 1950 the Mt. Pleasant fire department answered a call to the Hogue Pottery. By the time the trucks reached the scene the entire plant structure was ablazed and the fire had made too much progress to be brought under control.
Classified clipping from the November, 1951 MP Daily Times. “FOR SALE – 50 squares used sheet iron roofing been in fire, good for barn walls. Also some common brick,” Hogue Pottery.
My father Dr. Williams “Fergie” Ferguson told me stories of hauling some of that common brick from the Hogue Pottery plant in a Nash Rambler station wagon to bring home to pave a courtyard.
The Hogue Pottery Kiln lot was purchased by the Mt. Pleasant Industrial Foundation in 1975.
