Our bathroom and kitchen faience tiles (earthenware decorated with opaque colored glazes) were made by the Kraftile Company (1926-1997) of Niles, California. The tiles were molded from wet clay, dried and decorated by hand. They were then “single-fired” at a very high heat. This type firing was called “monolithic” and ensured the long lasting quality of the tiles. Kraftile used the catch phrase, “High Fired” in their marketing.
Kraftile was a sister company to the Kraft Foods firm. Kraft cheese was shipped in wooden crates that were produced in Niles, located just east of the San Francisco Bay, where lumber was cheap. Because of the burgeoning demand for homes, entering the clay roof tile business made financial sense. The owners realized they had a ready supply of manufacturing by-products that could easily be used to fire kilns. A. Clay Meyers, formerly of the California Art Tile Company in nearby Richmond agreed to supervise the operations, provided they agree to later expand into decorative tiles.
The equally interesting method used to install those tiles disappeared in the late 1940’s when plaster board (now called drywall or sheetrock) was invented. Prior to that time, tile was set directly into a bed of concrete and sand. The concrete was mixed to a slurry, into which the tiles were pressed. This was called a “mud bed” and the men who did the work were nicknamed “mud men”. The loose concrete slipped through the spaces to form a surrogate divider of grout. The choice of color was simple, you could have grey or white, (ours are specified white) hence the reason for the bold colors of tiles we find in our homes and other homes of the era.
The concrete method insured permanence. Installation was heavy work and the result provided a barrier between the water and the wall. The first bath enclosures that used drywall were not so lucky. As we now know, drywall absorbs moisture and the now common “greenboard” was not invented until the 1960’s. Many of the homes built in that period and beyond quickly required repair work. As anyone who has tried to remove some of the tile in our homes can attest, this tile was set for life. Very much like the so many other aspects of our interesting homes.
