Alberta Potteries was established by Jesse Wyatt in 1931 in Redcliff with the financial help of local area ranchers. In the short time Alberta Potteries was in production they produced chicken fountains, spittoons, bean pots, pudding bowls, meat pie pans, casseroles, custard cups, barrel shaped cookie jars and at least six different pitchers, two ashtrays, three styles of teapots and over six different styles of mixing bowls.
By 1936, with the tough times of the depression, Jesse Wyatt had enough and sold Alberta Potteries and returned to Eastern Canada.
The Alberta Potteries under Yuill's ownership started making jiggered mixing bowls in several sizes. In time they started to produce crocks, and an artware line that included four or more styles of vases, a bulb bowl, a rabbit shaped planter a rectangular shaped planter and set of log shaped planters. They also produced housewares such as baking dishes, bowls, casseroles, ashtray, baking dishes and even colored dishes. Malcolm McArthur joined Alberta Potteries to manage the pottery, during his time there he developed the "Birch Bark" pattern bar-be-que set. It is not know when Yuill gave up Alberta Potteries but Malcolm McArthur left in early 1958 to start his open his own pottery.
This webpage has illustrations of the stamps used by Alberta Potteries: https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MCR/article/view/17142/22847We use books written by Ron Getty: The Kilns of South Eastern Alberta, Know Your Medalta: Stamps and Other Markings A Guide to Dating Products and Know Your Medalta Vases, all the books have notes in them to help us remember anything extra we have seen or pieces that we have. We also use Medalta Stoneware & Pottery For Collectors by Richard & Jean Symonds. We have several others but use these books the most, almost on a daily basis, they are always close at hand and travel with us all over the country.
The Kilns of South Eastern Alberta has information and timeline about all the kilns in south eastern Alberta. It is very interesting to read how the people in the different companies moved around and the products they produced. We were lucky and when we bought our reference books two of them were available at the Medalta Museum and the other one we found on eBay.
Talking to other collectors, touring the museum in Medicine Hat and looking at other collections and handling pieces is the best way I have found to actually learn about what it is we are collecting. We have found other collectors very willing to share their knowledge and stories with us.The history of the pottery companies in Alberta is interesting as are the varied products they made. It is easy to imagine the more utilitarian products like crocks, butter churns and pitchers in our grandparents homes, but through those tough years of the depression I am sure it was a hard sell to get some of the artware products into peoples homes. Perhaps that is why different businesses gave away decorated pieces, so that everyone has a beautiful piece of pottery to look and bring cheer to their homes.
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