UHL Pottery History

UHL, rhyming with school, is some of the hottest pottery selling in today's antique collector's world.

Although Southern Indiana is the hot spot for buying and selling UHL, interest has sparked all over the country in part to on-line auction web sites such as Ebay.com.

UHL pottery fired approximately 1000 different items out of Evansville and Huntingburg, Indiana. The stoneware was produced from the 1850's through the 1940's and was shipped all around the United States and Canada using several means of transportation such as rail and horse drawn wagons.

Collectors are currently paying up to $100.00 for common crocks, jugs and garden/utilitarian ware, while Christmas jugs, hand-turned pieces, miniatures & novelty items are fetching considerably more. Glaze colors of the pottery also differentiate the pricing and value of the pieces. Teal, purple, blue and mauve are currently bringing higher prices with yellow, pumpkin, white, black, and brown/tan slightly less.

If a more precise and thorough history of the UHL Pottery Company is desired, see "A Collectors Guide and History of UHL Pottery", by F. Earl and Jane A. McCurdy, 1988. This book is out of print, but its information can be obtained from most officers and directors of the Collectors Society.

UHL products were shipped to stores, resorts, wineries and homes all around the country. Collectors seek items that are marked with names, dates or advertising. Only about 30% of UHL pottery was marked. 

The UHL family made Huntingburg, Indiana their home in 1909. They emigrated from Germany in the 1840’s, doing business in Evansville until discovering Huntingburg’s pure clay deposits. Some of the family’s relatives still reside in the Southern Indiana area.   This family retains the UHL trademark and to do so they must produce some pottery each year. The new pieces are miniatures manufactured by local clay potters around the region. They are dated, starting in the year 1991, to avoid the antiqueware being confused with the new. The reproductions are promoted at the family owned jewelry store in Jasper and Huntingburg Indiana.  The UHL family allows the collector’s society to make and distribute some additional reproductions for the annual convention as long as they are stamped “UHL Collector’s Society”. Below is a picture of the new miniatures the family is reproducing.