The Fiesta Tableware Company originated as Laughlin Pottery, a two-kiln pottery on the banks of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio — started in 1871 by brothers Shakespeare and Homer Laughlin. Shakespeare left the company in 1879.Press Reference Library: Notables of the Southwest, The Los Angeles Examiner, 1912, p. 45. In 1889 William Edwin Wells joined Laughlin, and seven years later they incorporated. Laughlin sold his interest to Wells shortly thereafter. The company was awarded a prize at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, for the best white-ware. The firm experienced rapid growth and opened a new 30-kiln plant in Newell, West Virginia, in 1903 — the companies present manufacturing and headquarters location. By the late 1920s all production was centered at the West Virginia factory and the Ohio site was abandoned.
