Billy Joe Craven describes the birth of an enterprise.
Billy Joe Craven, Craven Pottery, Gillsville, Hall County. Interview recorded June 1981.
John V. Craven opened the original Craven Pottery in White County, Georgia in 1850. Several generations later, Billy Joe Craven (b. 1947) returned to the family tradition and established the current Craven Pottery in 1971.
From one of the oldest potting families in the South, Billy Joe is a descendant of Peter Craven, who set up a pottery in North Carolina as early as 1760. Billy Joe learned to turn from members of the Hewell family and is now a leading producer of unglazed gardenware in the region.
Craven Pottery has its own fleet of trucks that deliver the wares to garden centers throughout the South and the pottery is now one of the largest employers in Banks County, Georgia.
