No. Van Briggle Pottery fired its last kiln at 1024 South Tejon Street in Colorado Springs on December 31, 2011, and the showroom there closed in the spring of 2012. The family that owned the company put it up for sale twice, in December 2011 and again in early 2013, and I have found no record that a sale ever went through. In October 2024 the Colorado Springs Gazette reported that the children of Kenneth and Bertha Stevenson still own Van Briggle and that no pottery is being made.
The 1908 Memorial Pottery on West Uintah Street, now Colorado College’s Facilities Services building. Photo: Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
How the Pottery Wound Down
From 1908 to 2008 Van Briggle worked in buildings it owned. Only its last three years were in rented space.
- 1908 to 1968: the Memorial Pottery. The tiled pottery on Uintah Street, designed by architect Nicolaas van den Arend, opened in 1908.
- 1955 to 2008: the Midland roundhouse. With a freeway (today’s I-25) planned near the old site, owner J.H. Lewis bought the former Colorado Midland Railway roundhouse on 21st Street in the mid-1950s. Both plants ran until 1968, when Lewis sold the 1908 building to Colorado College for $150,000.
- 1969 onward: the Stevenson family. Longtime employee Kenneth Stevenson bought the company in 1969. After his death in 1990, his wife Bertha and son Craig ran it.
- 2008: out of the roundhouse. The company sold the roundhouse to developers and moved out on November 30, 2008. A planned new space fell through, so the machinery, molds and stock went into storage.
- 2009 to 2011: Tejon Street. Production restarted in a leased building at 1024 South Tejon in May 2009, with six employees by 2011, down from 16 to 18 before the move.
- December 2011: up for sale. The family announced the sale; the last firing on Tejon Street was New Year’s Eve.
- 2012: closed. The store shut in the spring. That December the Gazette reported “no recent production,” with pottery still visible through the windows, and a sale planned for early 2013.
The owners pointed to the economy. A shrinking tourist trade had already pushed the move out of the roundhouse, and Bertha Stevenson’s death left the business to her estate. The Gazette gives her death as September 2010 in one story and 2011 in another.
Was Anything Made After 2012?
Very little. Kathy Honea, who catalogues Van Briggle date codes at vanbrigglenotes.com, has recorded a few pieces fired after the move from Tejon Street with codes A2 (2012), A3 (2013) and A4 (2014). Those are the last Van Briggle pieces I know of. If you have one, it is a genuine late piece; our dating guide covers the earlier codes.
Who Owns the Van Briggle Name?
The company still exists on paper but is no longer in good standing. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cancelled the “VAN BRIGGLE” trademark on October 27, 2023, after no renewal was filed. The Colorado corporation, Van Briggle Art Pottery Company, formed in 1930, has been listed as delinquent since June 2022.
Two websites carry the name. vanbriggle.com is the company’s own site, still online but unchanged since 2009, so it reads as if the pottery were open and taking orders. vanbriggle.art sells books by Kathy Honea and Kenneth Talmage Stacks, not pottery.
Can You Visit the Van Briggle Buildings?
- The 1908 Memorial Pottery, at Uintah Street and Glen Avenue near Monument Valley Park, is owned by Colorado College and has housed its Facilities Services department since 1970. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since April 2009. The tiled exterior, bottle-kiln chimneys and historic marker are easy to see from the street. It is a working college building, not a museum.
- The Midland roundhouse at 600 South 21st Street was renovated into offices and shops after 2008.
- The Tejon Street showroom is closed.
To see Van Briggle in person, the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum has Van Briggle in its collection, and the Manitou Springs Heritage Center ran an exhibit, Van Briggle: The Manitou Connection, in 2024. Our article on Van Briggle in museums around the world lists more.
When Was Van Briggle Founded: 1899 or 1901?
Both dates are right, for different events. Artus Van Briggle arrived in Colorado Springs in 1899, and the company itself used 1899 as its founding year. His first successful matte-glaze firing came in the spring of 1901, and the pottery began selling commercially in 1902.
What the Closing Means for Collectors
No new Van Briggle has been made for over a decade, so every piece on the market is secondhand, and late commercial pieces from the 1970s through 2012 are still easy to find. Our Van Briggle value guide gives prices by era, and the buying guide covers where to shop.
