The KT&K management was forward-thinking in establishing an in-house design-and-decoration shop instead of using outside designers. KT&K had, by 1888, purchased another pottery and constructed another plant with eight kilns. The company also constructed a plant dedicated exclusively to the production of bone china. In the United States, bone china had previously been made only in Trenton, New Jersey. Before KT&K's efforts, another East Liverpool potter, John Burgess, and his son-in-law, Willis Cunning, had briefly attempted to produce bone china. Their operation was short-lived, shuttered by East Liverpool City Council, which declared the odor of calcined bones to be a health hazard.