Wellsville Historical Society Starts Summer Series.

Sunday - July 11: The Wellsville Historical Society began their summer series of programs on significant historical Wellsville subjects this past Sunday at the River Museum. Sunday's program was presented by Mr. Roland Bryer giving the history of Acmecraft Ware Pottery that was located at 3rd & Lisbon Sts. Bryer is the son of Geraldine & the late Richard Bryer who were some of the owners of the old pottery.

Acmecraft Ware got its start with a couple of roadside stands, probably in the late 1930s or very early 1940s. Bryer's aunt & uncle, Roland & Mary Leonard, decided to go into business on their own selling pottery ware they would buy wholesale from area potteries. They opened stands along Route 30 - one near Hogue's Restaurant and one out near the YMCA Camp. That was in the days before interstate four-lane highways when Route 30 was the major east-west highway across the country. In 1941 the Leonards along with Albert VanDyne opened a store front retail store and distributorship in Wellsville to sell their products. They installed some small kilns in the rear of the building and started decorating the pottery items they sold.

In 1946 the Leonards & VanDyne joined forces with Julia & John Mountford, Sam Corbisello and Eva Bryer. Together they bought the old Burgess Porcelain building and Acmecraft Ware was born. Somewhere along the line brothers Richard and John Bryer and their wives, Geraldine & Ruth, became part of the ownership. The first thing the building's buyers did was to refurbish the old bottle kiln converting it from coal fired to gas. That is the kiln still in place today. Later they added an addition to the building and installed a 115 foot long tunnel kiln that allowed for more even heating of the ware. That greatly reduced the margin of loss often experienced with the bottle kiln.

Acmecraft continued buying their unfinished ware from area potteries, decorated it and resold the finished pieces to distributors. They would give the distributors exclusive rights on a particular piece or line that only they could acquire. The distributors in turn sold the decorated pieces to shops, many of them located in bus and train stations. The old Pearl China that recently closed is a good example of the type of stores the distributors would sell to.

Many of the items Acmecraft produced were novelty pieces used for decorating homes. They are noted for their Weeping Gold and similar platinum ware which came about by accident when some wax was spilled on a piece. It got glazed and the tear shaped decoration was an immediate hit. Trying to duplicate it they discovered using a natural sponge to apply the tear shapes was the ticket. With the many generous donations over the years the River Museum has an excellent collection of many Acmecraft pieces on display. We tried to show many of them in the collage above. We also showed the back stamp that was used on the Weeping Gold pieces. If it don't say "Hand Decorated - Weeping Bright Gold - 22 K. Gold U.S.A." it's not Acmecraft Ware. There were many imitations.

At it's peak Acmecraft employed 135 people plus those that were salaried. On average there were 80 employees working. Around 1968 word came of the new highway taking the building and many employees realizing they were going to lose their jobs started leaving for jobs elsewhere. The building was sold to the state and demolished sometime in 1969 or 1970.

All that remains is the kiln. The state was petitioned to preserve it for history's sake. There are only three of them left in the area. Hall China still has one up in East End. One can be seen along Second St. in East Liverpool and Wellsville has the third. It sits on ODOT property and is maintained by the Wellsville Historical Society. When exiting Route 7 at the 3rd St. ramp you're driving right through the middle of what use to be Acmecraft Ware.

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