Originally, I had thought that Santa Anita Pottery had been located somewhere near Arcadia, CA because the Santa Anita Racetrack (and the Santa Anita Mall as well) is located in that area. I’m pretty familiar with that neighborhood, which is northeast of downtown LA in the San Gabriel Valley. In fact, I often drive through the area on the way to the thrift. So I had assumed this was near where the pottery had been located.

However, when I picked up Chipman’s book I saw that he placed it in Los Angeles dating back to near 1939. Then later in Lehner’s book on Pottery Marks, I saw that they even had the addresses of the pottery (first on Fletcher Dr., then later moving to San Fernando Rd.) The pottery most likely ceased operations before 1960.

I’ve found a number of different pieces from Santa Anita pottery - most common items seem to be single pieces of dinnerware, lazy susans chip and dip combos and decorative dishes. Some of the notable patterns on dinnerware include the “Flowers of Hawaii” patterns, the spiral swirl patterned Vreni line and the plain California Modern and the square shaped Carmel line. The “Flowers of Hawaii” line was rather popular in the 50s and included nine different types of flowering plants from Hawaii - see the photos for Cup of Gold before. The shape is actually the same as California Modern.

Many of the chip and dips and compartmental dishes have a vibrant “drip” style glaze in green or orange which was really popular with many of the California potteries.

One thing nice about pottery from Santa Anita is that it is nearly always marked, whether ink stamped or in-mold impression. I was trying to figure out why all the items I have are marked “Santa Anita Ware” - it turns out that the company also changed its name when it moved in the 50s. See the backstamps below…

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Note: We've tried to provide as much info as possible on this pottery maker or artist. For further info, you may want to research the items they have on Ebay listed under this name. We've tried to hand tailor the searches below so they will bring up the most accurate results. If there are no results, it will list general California pottery.