Terra Cotta, California
Coal, along with clay deposits, was found on the site by John D. Huff in the late 1880s, and the Southern California Coal and Clay Company was formed to mine them. The town site of Terra Cotta was laid out and was given a post office on October 26, 1887. In May 1893 its post office was closed and moved to Lake Elsinore. A plant for the manufacture of sewer and water pipes was built using the coal to fire ceramic pipes in the four kilns. The finished product had to be shipped by wagon six miles through Lake Elsinore to the La Laguna rail station at the mouth of Railroad Canyon until 1896 when a spur line was built through Lake Elsinore and Terra Cotta to the new clay deposits in Alberhill. The coal mined was also used locally as fuel for the stamping mill at the Good Hope Mine and was shipped elsewhere in the state.
Stan Bitters
In his book "Environmental Ceramics", Bitters says that “Clay assumes powerful form in sculpture. Because of its responsive nature and its receptivity to impressions, clay is open to tremendous variety of sculptural approaches, and can be worked additively and subtractively with equal ease. Its visual mass gives it an earthy, weighty character in contrast to the liquid nature of glass or the linear character of welded steel in which a massive piece may appear to be much lighter than it is. The immediacy with which clay can be worked gives the sculpture great energy. Clay accepts and emits emotional power” (Bitters 1976, p. 77).