Key Takeaways
- Coors, a well-known beer brand, has a long history in Colorado beyond its beer production, including a ceramics business that dates back to the late 1800s
- The company’s ceramics division, now known as CoorsTek, has undergone several name changes and has produced a variety of products, including glass bottles, dinnerware, and labware
- The Coors family is redeveloping a 14-acre site in Golden, Colorado, into a mixed-use district called Clayworks, which will include a new global headquarters for CoorsTek, housing, a hotel, and public open space
- The redevelopment project has uncovered artifacts from the company’s past, including glass bottles and shards from the late 1800s, which will be displayed publicly at Clayworks
- The Coors family plans to incorporate the history of the site into the design and construction of the Clayworks development
Introduction to Coors’ History
The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Most Coloradans know Coors as the brand behind the beer we drink to endure a Rockies game or celebrate on the summit of a fourteener. However, the name has a long history in the Centennial State beyond booze. When Prohibition dried up the company’s beer profits, the family turned to a new moneymaker: ceramics. Today, this branch of the Coors empire is known as CoorsTek, a manufacturer of high-performance technical ceramics for industries like aerospace, defense, and automotive.
The Evolution of CoorsTek
The company has cycled through multiple identities over time: Coors Porcelain Company, Herold China and Pottery Company, and, initially, Colorado Glass Works. Under its various names, Coors created glass bottles, dinnerware, porcelain malted milk containers, and labware on property the family has owned since 1884. Now, this six-block site is being redeveloped into a new mixed-use district called Clayworks, which the company hopes will serve as an extension of downtown Golden. The first phase of Clayworks is CoorsTek’s new global headquarters, a 182,000-square-foot building called the Pottery, which is slated to open in August.
The Redevelopment of Clayworks
The rest of the district will include more than 500 multifamily housing units, a 140-room boutique hotel, public open space, restaurants, retail stores, and additional office space. It’s expected to take 10 to 15 years to fully build out, says Sarah Marvez, a director at AC Development, the Coors family’s real estate arm. A rendering of the new Clayworks mixed-use district shows a vibrant and bustling area that will bring new life to the historic site. Redeveloping the 14-acre site has become a full-circle moment for the Coors family. Not only is the project bringing CoorsTek back to its roots, but it’s also uncovering artifacts from some of the company’s earliest endeavors in Golden.
Uncovering History
When AC Development began demolishing unused buildings on the site in April 2024, crews discovered a large area filled with glass bottles and shards made by Colorado Glass Works, a short-lived Coors enterprise from the late 1800s. "Before the construction, we only had very few examples of these bottles out there in the world, and our archive collections didn’t have any," says Melanie Keerins, Coors archivist and historian. "It was really amazing to be able to find bottles that we made in 1887 and 1888, intact on-site with our stamps." Hundreds of artifacts have been unearthed across the property, but a "good portion" were found next to the new Pottery building, Keerins says.
Preserving the Past
Unique finds include glass jars and bottles from the Colorado Glass Works era, industrial chemical labware such as mortar and pestle pieces, and grinding media that was produced on the property for 60 to 70 years. Some of the labware recently dug up at the property even boasts a "Coors USA" stamp. The Coors family plans to publicly display these pieces at Clayworks, and some will even be used in the construction of the building, including bricks from an old kiln. "A big part of what we’re interested in is really celebrating the history of the site and bringing some of those artifacts—whether they were found during the excavation or artifacts that we salvaged from the manufacturing facility—and using those to bring history and meaning to the Clayworks development," Marvez says. The Coors family is committed to preserving the history of the site and incorporating it into the design and construction of the Clayworks development.
