The Empire China Company, which manufactured plates, teacups, and so forth, opened a factory at the east end of this street in late 1921. (That’s when the street was named.) Empire China was founded by Isaac R. Landis and Fred E. Keeler, who owned a clay deposit in Nevada and supplied the raw material. To run the company, they hired William G. Jackson from East Liverpool, Ohio – then a center of the ceramic pottery industry – as president and Edward W. Morgan as sales manager. All four of these men received namesake streets when a nearby tract was set up to house their workers. At its peak, Empire China had a workforce of about 150, but shifty payouts of dividends led to legal disputes, receivership, and finally bankruptcy in 1933. The factory was replaced by a Lockheed facility – we can thank Fred Keeler for bringing Lockheed to town – which would itself be replaced by the Burbank Empire shopping center years later.
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