Industry
The Bonaparte Pottery Archeological District in Bonaparte, Iowa, preserves the remains of a significant 19th-century pottery works that operated from 1866 to 1895. Founded by Sidney Parker and Thomas Hanback and later associated with Robert Wilson and Henry Jones, Bonaparte Pottery grew in the Des Moines River Valley, where coal deposits and fire clay supported Iowa’s leading pottery-producing region. Surviving remains include two kilns and a factory building erected in 1876 after fire destroyed an earlier structure in 1875. Though smaller than major regional firms, the pottery illustrates the importance of ceramics to Iowa’s economy and the later decline of small river-valley manufacturing communities.
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Bonaparte, Iowa · United States
