Written By:

Thomas L. Langlois
President
Allen Clay Tile Products Co., Inc.
Indianapolis, IN

Allen Clay Tile was founded by Ethen Allen, not the patriot or any connection to the furniture manufacturer, in 1955.  The company was located in Indianapolis, IN at the north-east corner of Hamilton Avenue and East Washington Street (2100 Block) on the ground floor of a three or four story red brick Odd Fellows Lodge.  Sometime in the 1920's the roof of this building had been taken off by a tornado.  Allen's occupied half of the ground floor. The other half of the building was occupied by the AL-MOE tavern.

Allen's wife also worked in the business, as well as Larry Weimer.  Larry had worked in the tile trade for a number of years and had been on the tile crew when the Murat Hotel on North Meridian Street was being built sometime in the 1920's.

I know little else about Ethen Allen except that he and his wife are now deceased and that at first Allen Clay Tile was a side venture of his.  Allen was also in some kind of refrigeration business at the time.  In 1955, ceramic tile was only available through tile contractors.  The few tile factories in the USA would hook up with a tile contractor and the consumer was at their mercy if they wanted ceramic tile in their home or business.  They sold installed only.

Also by 1955, ceramic tile mastic had been introduced as well as dry set grout.  All this meant that ceramic tile was not only a lot easier but a lot less costly to install.  Ceramic tile no longer needed to be installed in cement, known as "mud", and tile no longer needed to be soaked in water prior to setting with the introduction of dry set grout.  Allen saw an opportunity to sell ceramic tile to the general public.  However the ceramic tile manufacturers would have none of this independent distributor marketing scheme.  They would die hard on the through the "contractor only" marketing program.  However, Allen had a sister who served in the WAC's during WW II.  She was stationed in England and got to know people affiliated with the H & R Johnson Company, a world leading ceramic tile manufacturer.  Allen now started importing English wall and floor tile.  In the evening, Larry would demonstrate how to install ceramic tile to the general public at the East Washington Street location.

Ceramic tile was far superior than plastic and was now a lot easier to install and would soon be cheaper.  I remember this English tile.  It came in wooden boxes, available in two thicknesses - thick and thin, no trim but one edge was glazed, and no lugs.  White butcher twine was used for spacing the grout lines -- known as stringing the grout lines.  English tile had endless colors, including all kinds of shades of pink and green.  The brighter colors had a tendency to craze.  However, at this time Joe Mast formed a corporation he named Stylon head quartered in Boston and started manufacturing ceramic tile in Massachusetts with the independent distributor sales mind set.  Stylon, with the help of Tennessee Valley Authority funds, soon opened a state of the art tile plant in Florence, Alabama.

Other tile factories soon opened - Royal, Mortile, Universal Potteries, Florida now came on stream.  Also, ceramic tile now no longer needed to be fired twice.  This process was called "single fire"  Because of this new technology, tile prices went down.  The old ways were gone.  Some of the old manufacturers refused to accept "single fire" and eventually had to close their doors.

Many tile setters, now able to purchase tile from independent distributors, left the "old line" tile contracting companies and started up on their own.  Allen also hooked up with Royal Tile in Fort Worth, Texas.  Allen's days of importing tile from England were over.

Ceramic tile was now more available and more affordable.

Allen, in not too good of health, sold Allen Clay Tile in 1957 to J.J. Langlois, a former sales manager for Remington Rand in both Bridgeport, CT and Cleveland, OH, and since 1956 a sales manager for P.R. Mallory in Indianapolis.

J.J. Langlois proceeded to build the company.  The Morton Ceramic Tile Co located in Morton, Illinois line was taken on.  Other lines were also taken on -- Shower Doors - Mirrors - Feature Strips - Tools - Marble Sills -- Medicine Cabinets -- Cultured Marble Vanity Tops -- Vermont Slate -- Mosaic Floor Tile from the Far East -- Chrome Fixtures -- Clip on China Accessories.

In October of 1959, after graduation from college and after two years of service in the US Army Transportation Corps yours truly went into the business with his father.

By 1964, Allen Clay Tile was renting space to store inventory both in a garage in the alley behind Hamilton Avenue, in a shop previously occupied by a plumbing company on South Keystone Avenue, and in a small separate room in the Odd Fellows building facing Hamilton Avenue.  There we stored shower doors and marble sills - White Italian, Tennessee Pink, Indiana Limestone, and Estramos.  These were the days of aluminum windows.  For a while the sills were cut outdoors on the adjacent tree lawn with a Felker tub saw head set on top of a wooden stand.  This operation often took two to three people.  One to push the marble into the saw and one to hold the ends of the sill.  This saw head we still have and use for tile cutting.

In May of 1964, Allen clay Tile moved next door to 2112 East Washington Street, a 5000 S/F one story block building built in 1953 formerly occupied by Cooper Tire and for a short while by a Porsche automobile dealer.  We moved in while the Porsche dealer, who had been evicted, was moving out.  It was quite a mess!  Now everything was under one roof.

There we stayed until October of 1990 moving to our present location in the Northwest section of Indianapolis next to the Park 100 area.

J.J. Langlois stayed active in the business until the middle 80's when he semi- retired.  He passed away in 1992.

At the time we moved in 1990, our neighborhood had gone from an old relatively safe inner-city neighborhood to a bad part of town.  The tavern next door had gone from a quite neighborhood tavern to a "dive" frequented by questionable characters.  Our show room and offices were not air conditioned.  We froze in the winter and burnt up in the summer.  The roof always leaked and wasn't getting any better.  We finally had to have the front windows boarded up.  They leaked and were frequently getting broken.  One night a pool cue, most likely from the tavern next door, wound up pointing through the front door glass.  We found it necessary to install a burglar alarm.  We again had to lease space for inventory.  This time in a grocery warehouse around the corner on Koewba Lane.  It was time to move.  Among other things, we had simply outgrown the building and the business needed to move to the suburbs.

At the time of our move, we had just begun to import tile from Italy.  Large unit wall and floor tiles were in.  Large unit glazed floor tiles could now be successfully installed over wood sub floors with the advent of latex modified thin sets.  The 4 1/4 wall tile hey day was over.  American manufacturers both deficient in technology and harassed by the likes of OSHA had seen better days.

In Italy there are approximately 600 tile factories, and in Spain there are approximately 400 tile factories not to mention numerous factories in Germany, England and France.  I doubt if there are more than 10 tile plants in the USA.  Italy leads the world in manufacturing technology.

In 1991, a third generation Langlois, Thomas K., came to work at Allen Clay tile after graduation from Huntington College in Huntington, IN.

Allen Clay Tile has seen two employees retire after many years of service.  Four people on its current payroll have a combined total of 86 years of employment.

At the start of the new century, Allen Clay Tile hopes to continue on as it has for the last 45 years.