Pioneer Pottery of Utah and E. C. Henrichsen's Provo Pottery Company BY K I R K
HENRICHSEN
U t a h pioneer pottery as just another craft, rising out of pioneer expediency a n d abandoned with the coming of the railroad, when studied more thoroughly one finds that " t h e pottery industry of U t a h was of much greater dimension than that of its sister states"^ a n d more interesting than expected. Not only did it assist the nineteenth-century settlement of the M o r m o n West, b u t it continued into the twentieth century. For the isolated M o r m o n settlers, preservation of their valuable foodstuffs was a necessity. Age-old methods of cooling fruits a n d vegetables in root cellars and drying meats in smokehouses were common household practices, but they were limited. For long-term storage earthenware crocks and j a r s were required. Part I of this essay explains that the d e m a n d for these items as well as for other food preparation vessels was met throughout the territory almost exclusively by foreignborn and -trained potters. Part II presents a detailed examination of the work of one such Danish immigrant potter, Erick Christian Henrichsen, who built in Provo what L D S church historian Andrew J e n s o n referred to as " t h e largest pottery plant in the state. "^ Henrichsen's pottery plant was not only U t a h ' s largest but also its most enduring, operating for over half a century until 1927. M o r e interesting than its size and longevity, however, are its production methods and their similarity to the methods of contemporary potteries in D e n m a r k . A survey of the different types of ware produced in this shop over time reveals interesting changes in the daily lives of U t a h ' s citizens and the important contribution Henrichsen a n d other potters m a d e to the material culture of early U t a h . A L T H O U G H I T IS C U S T O M A R Y T O T H I N K O F
Mr. Henrichsen, a potter himself, works as a museum exhibit designer. •William C. Ketchum, J r . , The Pottery and Porcelain Collectors Handbook: A Guide to Early American Ceramics from Maine to California (Funk and Wagnalls, 1971), p. 43. 2Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City, 1901-36), 2:9.
