In 1881, lawyer William Day Gates founded the American Terra Cotta Tile and Ceramic Company in Terra Cotta, Illinois, close to Crystal Lake, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago. Along with producing the first architectural terra cotta in America, especially for Prairie School building projects — Frank Lloyd Wright was a customer — Gates also produced various clays and glazes for art pottery. Teco, a contraction of ‘Terra Cotta,’ soon became synonymous with excellence in decorative design. Gates was originally inspired by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement, which began in Britain in the late 19th century. Reacting against increasing mechanization, Arts and Crafts thinkers such as John Ruskin and William Morris championed handc...