Work starts on expansion at Owens Illinois

WORK STARTS

ON NEW UNITS

Owens - Illinois Expansion

Program Under Way.

Construction has begun on new units at the Owens-Illinois Glass Company on Macedonia avenue, the work to be finished by July 1 and giving employment to about 300 men, W. P. Zimmerman, general manager of the plant, announced last night.

The new units will include a new shop for production of Insulex [sic] Insulux glass blocks and enlargement of the present No. 1 factory, which for the past few years has been used for storage, but under the plan of construction will house a new glass furnace, ovens, locker rooms, offices and storage space.

Glass Bricks Gain in Use.

Glass blocks produced by the com­pany will be used in the construction together with the usual brick and steel works. The Simplex Engineering Company of Washington, Pa., is in charge of the construction.

Manufacture of glass bricks was started here last June and since they were put on the market the demand for their use in construction has steadily increased. They have been used in buildings in forty states.

At present the glass blocks are be­ing used in eleven Muncie building projects, including the new Coca-Cola building. Normal’s grocery and apartments, the Wagner filling sta­tion and garage at Jefferson and Charles streets, and the remodeling of the new rooms for the Woolworth Company at Walnut and Charles streets.

Shefield Farms, Inc., at Jamaica, N. Y., is one of the many food manu­facturing companies to adopt glass brick for construction, and the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company at Win­ston-Salem, N. C., is using glass bricks for a new building. A new service plant using 12,500 glass blocks is be­ing built by the Scranton Electric Company. Scranton, Pa., and the Muncie product will be used in build­ings at the Texas Centennial Exposi­tion.