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Mountain Hopping 2016:
In search of America's lost potteries

Click here to see a larger version of the map. Click on individual dots to visit those sites.
Ed,  Zephyr and Tilde
Ed, Zephyr and Tilde take a break at a rest stop. (What kind of dogs are those masked bandits? Click here.)
cicada
We happily timed it (completely by chance) so that we were able to see and hear thousands of the Brood V of 17-year cicadas.
Rising Creek Bakery
Rising Creek Bakery in Mt. Morris, Penn., is just over the West Virginia line heading up I-79. They have the best, hard-to-find salt rising bread, and on this day – and not so happily – were serving a local delicacy. Click here for a link to the bakery; they ship!

In May 2016, with the sound of cicadas providing much of the soundtrack, we headed to West Virginia and Pennsylvania with the goal of putting our feet on the sites of six manufacturers of commercial china that have long been closed, abandoned, burned, razed and/or cleaned up as EPA superfund sites.

From one dot on the map in Ravenswood, W.V., to the last in Falls Creek in the Pennsylvania Wilds, it would be 375 miles of mountains.

We've documented the trip, hoping to give anyone else who is curious an idea of where these plants were actually located. In only one instance did we have a street address (Shenango); for the rest we had a few notes with vague references gleaned off the Internet.

Mostly, like Blanche DuBois, we depended on the kindness of strangers to find our way.


The Stops:

TRENLE-BLAKE – Ravenswood, W.V.

Trenle-Blake


McNICOL – Clarksburg, W.V.

McNicol


CARR – Grafton, W.V.

Carr China


MAYER – Beaver Falls, Penn.

Mayer China


SHENANGO – New Castle, Penn.

Shenango China


JACKSON – Falls Creek, Penn.

Jackson China

 

Digging in West Virginia, Pennsylvania & Ohio

The Carr China site
Page 1: The grounds
Page 2: The shards
Page 3: After the first cleanup in 2009
Page 4: The final cleanup

 

Page 5: Mountain Hopping 2016
             Trenle-Blake
             McNicol
             Carr (again)          
             Mayer
             Shenango
             Jackson
Page 6: River Hopping 2017
             McNicol (again)
             Warwick
             Sterling
             Hall/Homer Laughlin
             Bedford China/                   
             Bailey-Walker/Walker

             Fraunfelter

TOP

 

 
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Trenle-Blake China McNicol China Carr China Mayer China Shenango China Jackson China