[Newspaper]
Publication: The Los Angeles Express
Los Angeles, CA, United States
vol. 56, no. 19, p. 18, col. 5-6
Glass Making Now One of
Southland's Big Industries
There are 13 glass plants operating in Southern California, representing a capital investment of some $3,500,000 and an output during 1925 of well over $4,500,000. This is the statement contained in an article of the current issue of Southern California Business, official magazine of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
Employed in turning out this great total are 1170 factory employes who obtain in pay about $40,000 a week. These figures, which are based solely on factory selling prices, do not include the production of many concerns who employ glass itself as a raw material, such the windshields and mirror manufacturers, but solely relate to those concerned actually in melting the glass from the raw materials.
It may be interesting to note that of the totals above given, about $1,900,000 represents building glass, inasmuch as several plants were only in operation a part of 1925 and consequently were unable to turn out a full year’s production, it is safe to estimate that this total for 1926 will be at least $1,000,000 greater.
The other largest section of the total was connected with a production of glass bottles, which accounts for about $1,860,000 additional in this field. Here also there is the expectation of very large increase, the schedules for one the largest companies already showing a production for the first three months of 1926 as approximately 50 per cent over 1925. One of the important announcements since the first of the year was the decision of the Illinois Pacific Glass Company, one of the large bottle producing companies of the country, to open a $750,000 plant in Los Angeles. It may be mentioned in passing that Southern California is a great consumer of bottles, not only for local use with milk, water and beverages, but to contain many medicinal and toilet preparations which are manufactured here and shipped throughout United States. With such leading companies as the Southern, Long Beach; West Coast, Latchford and Compton Glass Companies, the bottle field seems well taken care of.
It is in the specialty lines, however, that Los Angeles makes its largest proportional contribution to the glass industry of the country as a whole. In the juice extractors made by the Sunset Glass Company, of which 80 per cent are sent east of the Rockies, or the glass knobs for doors and furniture made by the Technical Glass Company and sold throughout the country, Los Angeles holds a central position. Several other companies, such as the Brock Glass Company, with its insulators and knobs, the McLaughlin Company with its sidewalk lights and glass bowls, contribute to the total.
In the face of this extensive development it is hard to realize that the the first glass produced in Southern California by any of the plants now operating was made in 1918 only a little over seven years ago. All of the building glass plants and several of the bottle plants began since July, 1923.