Today@Sam Article
Sam Houston Museum Celebrates Texas Archeology Month with Clay and Collaboration
Oct. 2, 2025
SHSU Media Contact: Campbell Atkins
By Mikey Sproat
The Sam Houston Memorial Museum and Republic of Texas Presidential Library will celebrate Texas Archeology Month by hosting a free lecture highlighting recent excavations and analyses on Oct. 16 at 6:30 p.m. in the Woodward Auditorium at the Katy & E. Don Walker, Sr. Education Center. Amy Goldstein, section head of cultural resources for the environmental firm Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, Inc., will guest lecture on “Clay and Collaboration: Archeological Investigations at the Kirbee Kiln Site."
Think about the dinnerware you have in your cupboards, underneath your stove or in your cabinets. Some may be fancy, such as heirloom plates and cups passed down from your parents or grandparents, yet others may be plain, utilitarian dishes or jars you use every day without a second notice as to where they came from or how they were made.
Enter the Kirbee family and the utilitarian stoneware they made in the mid-19th century in Montgomery, Texas.
Built along what is now known as Juggery Creek in Montgomery County, the Kirbee family used the area’s abundant natural clay deposits for material to manufacture jugs, cookware, jars, bowls and food storage vessels to a growing southeast Texas in the 1850s.
During the early 1970s, the Texas Historical Commission conducted excavation tests of the Kirbee kiln used to harden, glaze and produce their stoneware. From that excavation came three significant outcomes:
The Kirbee kiln was the first groundhog type kiln, or earthen dug-out oven constructed of bricks and fired with wood, excavated in Texas. Research revealed that the kiln was one of the largest of its kind in the American South, constructed nearly 60 feet long, partially dug up the creekside, and containing two fireboxes and firing chambers. Lastly, the site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The Kirbee family, originally from South Carolina, migrated to Texas in the 1840s. Edgefield, South Carolina is notable in the ceramic industry as the origin of the southern-style alkaline glazing technique. The Kirbees used this very skill of mixing wood ash, sand and clay together to glaze and seal their stoneware. In a time when glass and metal containers were not readily available, the Kirbees capitalized on the abundance of wood for fuel, clay and water for product, and enslaved labor to carve out their family business in Montgomery.
The site has a history of Akokisa, Bedia and Caddoan cultures, and lies nearly within the Coushatta Trace and Montgomery Trace, two early prehistoric and historic thoroughfares going in all four cardinal directions. Spanning nearly two decades, the Kirbees operated the kiln on the site through the 1860s.
Enter Goldstein, who has worked with Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, Inc. since 2022. Between 2021 and 2024, a wide variety of individuals and organizations, including Goldstein, collaborated to conduct renewed research and excavations. Recent work focused on identifying areas where people were living and working outside the kiln itself.
“These areas can give us a better understanding of the lives of the people who worked the kiln, many of whom were probably enslaved,” Goldstein said.
Among the collaborators is Cook’s Branch Conservancy (CBC), which owns the Kirbee kiln site today as well as nearly 7,000 acres of adjoining land in Montgomery County. Goldstein points out the unique aspect of this particular excavation project in her career. She has undertaken many projects because those sites would soon be developed, thus destroyed, by infrastructure projects.
"This project is unique because our ultimate goal is to preserve the Kirbee site," Goldstein said.
This stewardship, to protect critical cultural and environmental resources in Montgomery County, is the main goal of the CBC for the site today.
When Goldstein joins the museum on Oct. 16, the evening will begin with a reception at 6:30 p.m. followed by the lecture at 7 p.m. Admission is free. For more information on the event, contact the museum at 936-294-1832 or visit the website.
The Walker Education Center is located at 1402 19th Street in Huntsville. Also on display for the entire month of October in the Exhibit Gallery will be an exhibit featuring images, posters and archeological artifacts from the collection of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum, as well as sites across Texas.
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