 A HIDDEN HISTORIC GEM rarely seen by anyone other than neighborhood swimmers and residents, this recreation center grew from plans envisioned by Balboa Park Superintendent John Morley in 1914. That year, Morley set aside the park's northeast corner (now called Morley Field) for major outdoor recreational activities. It wasn't until the Great Depression that the City Council funded the project; its construction provided relief work for San Diego’s growing number of unemployed. Named for former Recreation Director William A. (Bud) Kearns, the outdoor pool was dedicated on New Year’s Day, 1933.
Fittingly, richly glazed tile in shades of blue and green frame the entrance and matching doorways between the lobby and pool area, with stair risers also heavily decorated with tile.
The highly praised California Clay Products Tiles (CALCO), located in Vernon, then South Gate, made the tile, using pattern no. D6. Their tile decorating technique is called cuenca: deeply impressed patterns that create reservoirs to be glazed.
Operating from 1923 to 1932, CALCO was the ingenious creation of Rufus Bradley Keeler (1885-1934), a master ceramicist and glaze expert. In addition to his contributions at CALCCO, his illustrious career includes being plant superintendent of San Diego’s California China Products, and plant manager of Malibu Potteries—three of the best tile producers in California history.
The factory made 30,000 square feet of tile monthly, enough tile to meet the 1920s real-estate boom and its revivals of Mission, Spanish Colonial, Moorish, and Mayan style homes and public buildings.
Tudor Potteries, founded in 1927, produced the even more colorful tiles used here on the interior stair risers. Its plant, CALCO's first facility, and other tile manufacturers all clustered in Vernon, an industrial Los Angeles suburb.
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