{"nrhp_refnum":"98000982","name":"White and Company's Goose Lake Stoneware Manufactury","other_names":["Jugtown","Pottery Works","11gr69"],"category":"site","location":{"address":"5010 N. Jugtown Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Morris","county":"Grundy County","state":"IL","lat":41.34717559100005,"lon":-88.32205128416254,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1998-08-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Historic - Non-Aboriginal"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"An archaeological site near Morris, Grundy County, Illinois, preserving the remains of a mid-nineteenth-century stoneware pottery works at Jugtown, built from 1855 by William White and Charles Walker. It lies within a state-owned preserve and is used as parkland.","why_significant":"The site is listed under Criterion D for its ability to yield information about early industrialized pottery production in Illinois. White and Company set up a production system that contrasted sharply with traditional ceramic workshops in the state. The site's dense scatter of kiln furniture, waster sherds and brick may reveal workshop layout, kilns, division of labor and mechanized methods.","narrative":"Remains of a pottery factory lie in a field near Morris, Illinois, within a state-owned marsh and prairie preserve. William White, a potter from New York, and Chicago financier Charles Walker began building the Goose Lake Stoneware Manufactury in 1855 to use the rich clay beds near Goose Lake. The firm stopped production in 1866, but it had introduced a factory-style system quite different from the small workshops common in Illinois. Surface collection in 1991 recovered over 14,000 artifacts from a site covering more than 36,000 square meters, mostly kiln furniture, waster sherds, brick and crockery. The distribution of debris points to a pottery workshop area, possible kilns and a dump or roadway. Records suggest White paid skilled workers well above the regional average, and that mechanized molding of bowls and lids had begun. The site was listed because it can still yield information on early industrial pottery making.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"William White and Charles Walker (White and Company)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["D"],"status_note":"Currently part of a state park landscape; the field was farmed in 1991 and then planted in prairie grass.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.378622-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/27/8929/28892927/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/98000982.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/98000982/2f3a173a70-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/98000982/2f3a173a70-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Teemu08","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_and_Company%27s_Goose_Lake_Stoneware_Manufactury.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Teemu08</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_and_Company%27s_Goose_Lake_Stoneware_Manufactury.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892927","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_and_Company%27s_Goose_Lake_Stoneware_Manufactury","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14688243"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/grundy-county/white-and-companys-goose-lake-stoneware-manufactury-98000982/"}