Three Mountaineers

The Three Mountaineers was the result of the merger of The Treasure Chest and the Log Cabin in 1931 by the original three founders of The Treasure Chest: Hugh C. Brown, Edwin Brown, and W.H. Lashley. For their move to College Avenue and Valley Street, they needed 500 dollars. They only had 75 dollars available in actual cash at the time. Through selling four loads of pottery they achieved their goal for start-up capital, and commenced with the move. In 1932 The Three Mountaineers was incorporated and The Treasure Chest and the Log Cabin were no longer individual entities.

In 1933 tragedy struck when one of the original co-founders, Edwin Brown, died. Even though he was never active in the business, his loss was keenly felt among the remaining two partners, Hugh Brown and W.H. Lashley. Later that same decade, in 1938, Hugh Brown died as well. Since then, Lashley has been in charge of the business that continued for another 54 years.

In 1939 a new element was added to The Three Mountaineers: The Blue Ridge Woodcrafters, which had supplied unfinished furniture to both The Treasure Chest and The Three Mountaineers. The Three Mountaineers and The Blue Ridge Woodcrafters were consolidated that year and Cecil V. Clayton, owner of The Blue Ridge Woodcrafters, became an additional stockholder.

The business grew steadily reaching sales totals of two hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars in 1941. However, between 1941 and 1946 increasing war-time regulations on materials and labor hurt the business. The Three Mountaineers was subsequently forced by wage and hour laws to focus solely on products which could be manufactured by machine.

In 1951 fire destroyed the downtown facility on College Avenue and Valley Street. After two years of construction, the new plant was opened in 1953 east of Asheville. The business remained at that location until its closure in 1992.

Similar to his use of mountain imagery in The Treasure Chest, Lashley focused on the "mountain pottery" image to help show the value and authenticity of his products. While appearing stereotypical to us now, such representations were simply seen as a way to visually represent the unique and individually crafted aspects of workmanship of The Three Mountaineers products as an industry in the Appalachian region. Examples of Lashley's art and his marketing strategy are seen below: