Esplanade Archives
Typical products produced at National Porcelain.
Did you ever wonder about that concrete foundation and couple of buildings located across the CPR spur from Medalta? National Porcelain was another of our industrial clay products industries located in the heart of the Historic Clay District. The recent passing of former manager Frank Weidel prompted me to remember my early employment there.
National Porcelain was established in 1947 as a plant to make electrical insulators by the former owner of Medalta, Art Cumming, and former Medalta manager Ed Phillipson and others on a site used as a stable by the cavalry of the First World War. A couple of years later, the plant was sold to Motor Coach Industries of Winnipeg, which in turn was acquired by Greyhound Bus Lines in 1959. Greyhound then sold the plant that same year to Medicine Hat Brick and Tile (called I-XL after 1971) who introduced new products and doubled the capacity.
It produced a variety of glazed porcelain insulators for the electrical distribution industry. Look up, way up, and at the top of power poles and substations you will see a variety of shapes in grey and brown hues. The mostly imported bagged specialty clays were unloaded from boxcars on weekends by young men with more brawn than my scrawn. The various clay components were mixed into a liquid slurry in a blunger and pumped into a filter press, canvas bags that allowed the water to drip out while the clay caked. You can see all this in Medalta’s museum as the process was the same. I was frequently called upon to don the oilskin apron and help “Les.” This two-man job involved pulling the canvas bags apart and grasping a hot, slippery, heavy pancake of clay and flipping it onto a small cart. The cakes were then pugged into a variety of shapes.
My official job was a “trimmer”: Drop a cylinder of clay onto on a spinning spindle and using a knife mounted on an arm, follow a template to trim it to shape and finish by smoothing with a wet sponge. Once dried, these bushings as they were called went to the ladies who hand glazed them. Then off to the shuttle kiln for firing, before being tested with high voltage and packaged.
As a junior employee with long arms, I was often chosen to unload the old periodic kiln which had cooled down just enough to not singe my eyebrows. Even through leather gloves, the heat of the fired ware could be felt. I wriggled around and placed insulators on boards which were then scooted out the kiln entrance on a roller conveyor. No need of a sauna after that!
There were other machines that produced different shapes but the production sequence was the same. My least favourite job was producing very small insulators that required four repetitive steps, about a thousand units per shift, usually at night while listening to the only AM (no FM in those days) radio station available at 3 a.m., a static-filled country station from Montana. All the while, the smell of the Alberta Western Beef across the road wafted through the open door.
On March 4, 1974, a fire started in the electrical testing area and consumed much of the wood structure. The decision was made by I-XL not to rebuild and most of the remaining structures were demolished.
Weidel, some of the other employees and investors decided to pick up the pieces and Independent Porcelain was established in Brier Park, opening in January 1976. However, the market and customer base had evolved in the two year gap and Indepor struggled to remain viable, ceasing operation in 1990.
Meanwhile, the Friends of Medalta used the old National Porcelain site to set up the first Medalta displays. I-XL Industries Ltd. donated the property and remaining buildings to Medalta as part of the legacy of clay industries in Medicine Hat.
Malcolm Sissons is a Member of the Heritage Resources Committee of the City of Medicine Hat. Fellow Member Sally Sehn provided some research for this column.
