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PANAMA POTTERY
1913: Panama Pottery was founded by Swedish immigrants who had been intrigued by pottery during a trip
to Panama; thus the name "Panama Pottery".
1914-1928: Panama Pottery, under the direction of Victor Axelson, Swedish immigrant who was President
of Panama Pottery, produced art pottery, including vases, urns, and lamp bases. Axelson retired in 1928.
1943-1954: Noble and Ouweta Leonard operated Panama Pottery.
1945: On January 18, 1945 the factory was destroyed by fire, causing $35,000 in damage.
1948: Ramon Santos landed a job, earning 80 cents an hour, at Panama Pottery, left to work at other jobs,
was asked to return by owner in 1958.
1954-1956: The Leonards leased the business to tenants, who went bankrupt.
1956: Panama Pottery was reopened by the Leonards.
1958: Ramon Santos returns to Panama Pottery, but did not make pottery right away. He shoveled clay,
drove a delivery truck, and sold pots.
1967: Ramon Santos married Arselia, who started working as Panama Pottery's bookkeper.
1963-1971: Noble Leonard died in 1963, the plant was operated by his wife, Ouweta Leonard until her death
in 1972.
1972: Wells Fargo, executor of the estate, sold Panama Pottery to Ramon Santos for $100,000.
2006: In September 2006 Panama is purchased by the present ownership with plans to continue traditional
pottery making and to make artisan pottery, sculpture, and art.
| 6 Gallon Crock |
| Vintage Logo |
Dec. 4--Just south of Hughes Stadium, amid a cluster of industrial structures, is a piece of
Sacramento history that largely goes unnoticed.
There sits Panama Pottery, a small factory that's churned out thousands of clay pieces
over the last 98 years.
Co-owners Ramon Santos, 73, and Arselia Santos, 62, have owned the unobtrusive shop
for the past 30 years and are ambivalent now about letting it go as they ponder retirement.
They say it's not easy to find someone, a potential buyer, who understands clay and how
to transform it for mass production into functional, salable art.
"It's hard if you don't have the background. There's a lot of things you have to know," said
Ramon Santos.
Inside the mostly windowless, plain aluminum building are two giant "beehive" kilns. Each
stands about 20 feet high and 60 feet around. One can hold about 5,000 pots and the
other about 8,000 pots baking in the final stage of production.
Since its inception in 1903, Panama Pottery has sustained itself using clay of the
Sacramento Valley -- deposits considered some of the highest quality and biggest in the
world.
Historically, the shop's inventory included many items that have long since vanished from
its lineup -- umbrella stands, cuspidors and pickling crocks.
Today, Panama Pottery's clay products are limited to various sized flower pots and a few
outdoor patio warmers known as "chimeneas."
About 70 percent of the company's selections are made at the 24th Street factory. The
rest are imported, mostly from Italy and Mexico.
One of the enduring features at Panama Pottery, however, is an original set of rails that
runs just beneath the factory's ceiling. They still serve the same function as they did
almost a century ago -- to move racks of pots around the plant.
In 1958 when Ramon Santos landed a job at Panama Pottery, he didn't make pots right
away. Instead he did a little bit of everything else -- shoveled clay, drove a delivery truck
and sold pots.
Santos eventually learned the company's style of production known as "jiggering" -- a
part hand, part mechanical process in which a potter stands at a machine and controls the
mold's spinning with a foot pedal while a template arm forms a pot's inner rim.
Today, Panama Pottery's two veteran potters, Esteban Lepe and Guillermo Perez, still
make the company's wares the same way.
"The pottery business as Panama Pottery has done it for the last 100 years using jiggering
machines is the last of a dying breed of pottery making," said Brian Tanner, president and
co-owner of Alpha Ceramic Supplies in Sacramento. "They're being lost to (the popularity
of) low-cost imports from Third World countries with cheap labor, and to plastic pots."
Many single-operation artisans use jiggering, but it is rare to find it in a commercial facility.
Forty-three years ago, Ramon Santos was relieved to have landed work at Panama
Pottery because it was better than his previous jobs milking cows in Texas and doing
seasonal labor for Southern Pacific railroad in Sacramento.
| Vintage Salt Glazed Crocks We get a curious number of inquiries regarding the history, value, and "story" behind the vintage crocks made at Panama Pottery. Here's what we know:
and a 6 gallon for $30
|
Eventually, he met Arselia at an Our Lady of Guadalupe Church dance and married her in 1967. Arselia soon started
working as Panama Pottery's bookkeeper, and four years later, in 1971, the couple bought the business for
$100,000.
Back then, the company was bigger and busier than it is today. Eight employees turned out about 1,500 pots per day.
Today, just two potters make about 1,000 items per week.
The company's sales have been creeping back up, according to the Santos couple, after dipping following the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. The Santoses won't disclose much about Panama Pottery's profits.
"We're still here. We're holding our own," said Arselia Santos.
At this point, Panama Pottery has about 300 clients, mostly nurseries, garden and gift shops, and hardware stores.
Nicked and warped pots not acceptable to those retailers are sold directly to the public at a discount.
According to research by the Crafts Organization Directors Association, 20,000 Americans were counted in 1999 as
potters -- not hobbyists but professionals making money from their craft.
Like Panama Pottery, most shops employ an average of just two people. Those small businesses are part of the
nation's roughly 126,000 craftspeople -- from stained glass makers to silversmiths -- who sell their artistic products.
The retail value of those goods, the CODA survey shows, is estimated at $14 billion annually.
By every account, Panama Pottery is the oldest pottery maker in the city of Sacramento. But it certainly isn't the
region's most diverse or largest producer, or even the oldest.
Gladding McBean in Lincoln is the largest local operator. The company, owned by Sacramento's Pacific Coast Building
Products, has 240 employees and thousands of customers worldwide.
It has been operating since 1875 and made a name for itself producing sewer pipes, roof tiles, paver tiles and terra
cotta building facades.
Cloud's Porcelain in Folsom, meanwhile, is known for its artistic pieces for everyday use. The company produces 150
different items including dinnerware, vases and sinks. After 29 years in business, Cloud's now employs 20 people
who throw, fire, glaze and paint pots and more.
Co-owner G.F. Cloud laments the shrinking number of potters locally who can produce high-quality pieces.
"Since the middle 1980s, it's been a continual progression of fewer and fewer (potters)," he said. "My guess is that
there are only 20 to 30 potters doing professional work in the Sacramento area, and only 10 to 12 are making a full
living from it."
Arselia and Ramon Santos know that. Even their three children did not pursue pottery making.
The only hope, however, is their daughter, Lorena Santos-Whitehead, 28, who wants to keep the business in family
hands. She recognizes the abundance of hard labor involved, but holds onto visions of building Panama Pottery's
sales staff, creating a Web site and buying radio and television advertising to promote the company.
All of that, however, would probably come after Santos-Whitehead's splashiest idea: She wants to paint a large
colorful mural on the building's exterior depicting potters jiggering or pressing pots.
"I've had a lot of people say they thought we were closed," she said. "They drive by and say it looks like an
abandoned building."
To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com
(c) 2001, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
working as Panama Pottery's bookkeeper, and four years later, in 1971, the couple bought the business for
$100,000.
Back then, the company was bigger and busier than it is today. Eight employees turned out about 1,500 pots per day.
Today, just two potters make about 1,000 items per week.
The company's sales have been creeping back up, according to the Santos couple, after dipping following the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. The Santoses won't disclose much about Panama Pottery's profits.
"We're still here. We're holding our own," said Arselia Santos.
At this point, Panama Pottery has about 300 clients, mostly nurseries, garden and gift shops, and hardware stores.
Nicked and warped pots not acceptable to those retailers are sold directly to the public at a discount.
According to research by the Crafts Organization Directors Association, 20,000 Americans were counted in 1999 as
potters -- not hobbyists but professionals making money from their craft.
Like Panama Pottery, most shops employ an average of just two people. Those small businesses are part of the
nation's roughly 126,000 craftspeople -- from stained glass makers to silversmiths -- who sell their artistic products.
The retail value of those goods, the CODA survey shows, is estimated at $14 billion annually.
By every account, Panama Pottery is the oldest pottery maker in the city of Sacramento. But it certainly isn't the
region's most diverse or largest producer, or even the oldest.
Gladding McBean in Lincoln is the largest local operator. The company, owned by Sacramento's Pacific Coast Building
Products, has 240 employees and thousands of customers worldwide.
It has been operating since 1875 and made a name for itself producing sewer pipes, roof tiles, paver tiles and terra
cotta building facades.
Cloud's Porcelain in Folsom, meanwhile, is known for its artistic pieces for everyday use. The company produces 150
different items including dinnerware, vases and sinks. After 29 years in business, Cloud's now employs 20 people
who throw, fire, glaze and paint pots and more.
Co-owner G.F. Cloud laments the shrinking number of potters locally who can produce high-quality pieces.
"Since the middle 1980s, it's been a continual progression of fewer and fewer (potters)," he said. "My guess is that
there are only 20 to 30 potters doing professional work in the Sacramento area, and only 10 to 12 are making a full
living from it."
Arselia and Ramon Santos know that. Even their three children did not pursue pottery making.
The only hope, however, is their daughter, Lorena Santos-Whitehead, 28, who wants to keep the business in family
hands. She recognizes the abundance of hard labor involved, but holds onto visions of building Panama Pottery's
sales staff, creating a Web site and buying radio and television advertising to promote the company.
All of that, however, would probably come after Santos-Whitehead's splashiest idea: She wants to paint a large
colorful mural on the building's exterior depicting potters jiggering or pressing pots.
"I've had a lot of people say they thought we were closed," she said. "They drive by and say it looks like an
abandoned building."
To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com
(c) 2001, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.