Pewabic Pottery

For over a century, the most beautiful tile in Detroit has come out of this Tudor-style pottery on East Jefferson. Mary Chase Perry Stratton founded Pewabic in 1903 — running a business at a time when women couldn’t legally own one or even vote — and became its in-house chemist, formulating the shimmering, iridescent glazes that made Pewabic famous worldwide.

Her tiles are quietly everywhere: the Guardian Building, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Public Library, Comerica Park, even the National Shrine in Washington, D.C. and the Nebraska State Capitol. Best of all, Pewabic never stopped — it’s a working pottery, school, and National Historic Landmark all at once. You can tour the tile fabrication, watch artists at the wheel, browse the museum upstairs, and buy a piece made on-site that very day. Detroit’s most enduring handmade thing, still made by hand.