What began nearly a century-and-a-half ago as a hobby for one of Cincinnati’s wealthiest young ladies developed into the nation’s finest and most prolific art pottery. Hard times, bankruptcy, and a misguided move south eventually closed its doors. If not for the intervention of a Michigan dentist in the eighties, Rookwood would have surely been sold overseas. In 2006, after keeping the pottery alive for two decades, Dr. Townley retired and sold to a group of Cincinnatians, bringing Rookwood “back where it belongs.”